ouse 


iER  CARRICK 


THE  NEXT-TO-NOTHING  HOUSE 


The  old  green  door  and  the  brass  knocker  of  much  responsibility 


The 

NEXT-TO-NOTHING 
HOUSE 


By 

ALICE  VAN  LEER  CARRICK 


And  I  said  to  myself,  if  I  were  a  poet  or  a  painter 
I  would  take  the  common  things,  and  show  the 
wonder  and  the  beauty  of  them.  —  Black 


WITH  ILLUSTRATIONS 


THE  ATLANTIC    MONTHLY  PRESS 
BOSTON 


Copyright,  1922,  by 
THE  ATLANTIC  MONTHLY  PRESS 


Printed  in  the 
United  States  of  America 


To  Grace  Kimball,  lacking  whose  wise  and  -pleasant 
counsel  my  book  would  never  have  been  written ;  to 
Betty  and  Bill  who  love  my  old  furniture,  and  to 
Anne  and  Gene  who  don  t ;  and  to  all  those  who 
have  visited  me,  either  in  person  or  in  print,  I 
dedicate  "  The  Next-to-Nothing  House" 


CONTENTS 

CHAPTER  PAGE 

PROLOGUE        xv 

I     THE  PICTURE  POST-CARD  HOUSE     .      .  1 

II    MY  PARLOUR    . 26 

III  THE  PARLOUR  BEDROOM 59 

IV  THE  OLD  FARM  KITCHEN     ....  83 
V     MY  KITCHEN Ill 

VI    THE  ELL-CHAMBER 132 

VII    THE  HEPPLEWHITE  BEDROOM     .      .      .  149 

VIII    THE  UPPER  HALL  AND  BATHROOM       .  192 

IX     "  THE  PRETTIEST  ROOM  "     .      .      .      .  204 

X     THE  SOUTH  CHAMBER 226 

EPILOGUE  249 


ILLUSTRATIONS 

THE  OLD  GREEN*  DOOR Frontispiece 

THE  PICTURE  POST-CARD  HOUSE 3 

FRONT  HALL,  SHOWING  STAIRWAY 7 

FRONT  HALL,  SHOWING  FRONT  DOOR,  BANNISTER-BACK 

CHAIR  AND  SILHOUETTE  OF  EDWARD  TREGO    ...  11 

"  BETROTHAL  SILHOUETTES  " 15 

PANEL  OF  OLD  WALL-PAPER      . 19 

THE  "  KATY-DID  "  Row ~  23 

PARLOUR  ENSEMBLE 29 

HEPPLEWHITE    TIP-TABLE    AND     EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY 

CHAIRS 33 

SLANT-TOP  DESK    .           39 

DESK,  "  FOUR-DOLLAR  "  SOFA   AND   BOOKCASE     ...  43 

OLD  FRANKLIN  FIRE-FRAME        47 

THE  EMPIRE  CORNER 51 

GOVERNOR  LEMUEL  HASTINGS  ARNOLD 55 

O 's  "  LINEN-WARP  "  COVERLET 61 

THE  SILHOUETTE  WALL,  WTRITING-TABLE,  AND  DICTION- 
ARY-STAND           ....  65 

WINDSOR  CHAIR 69 

BOOKSHELVES,    ROCKER   AND  COVERLET 73 

"  CORINTHIAN  "  PLATE 77 

LINEN-CHEST  AND  "  DRAWN-IN  "  RUG 81 

DINING-ROOM  85 


xii  ILLUSTRATIONS 

FIREPLACE,  SHOWING  EMPIRE  CLOCK,  BLUE  CHINA,  THE 

OVENS,  AND  OLD  COOKING-UTENSILS 91 

DINING-ROOM   VIEW,    LOOKING   TOWARD    PARLOUR   AND 

STUDY 97 

EMPIRE  TABLE  AND  STENCILED  CHAIRS 101 

MAHOGANY-AND-MAPLE  SIDEBOARD 105 

EMPIRE  SECRETARY 109 

CALDECOTT  CURTAINS;  BRAIDED  RUG;  RED  TABLECLOTH  113 

STENCILED  ROCKER;  SHELVES  OF  YELLOW  POTTERY       .  117 

"  WAG-ON-THE-WALL  "  CLOCK 121 

OLD  STONEWARE;  MUGS,  JUGS,  AND  PITCHERS;  SHAKER 

MILK-PAN 125 

COOKBOOK  SHELF;  TOLE-WARE;  STENCILED  SIDE-CHAIR  129 

PAINTED  DESK  AND  VICTORIAN  CHAIR       .      .      ,      .      .  135 

GLAZED  CHINTZ      .      , 139 

LITTLE  TABLE  AND  SUNRISE  COVERLET 143 

COLORED  FRENCH  PRINT 147 

PENNSYLVANIA  DUTCH  DAY-BED 151 

HEPPLEWHITE  BEDROOM,  SHOWING  MANTELPIECE  WALL  .  155 

PEACE  MIRROR  ;  FRANKLIN  STOVE  ;  SLAT-BACK  ROCKER  .  157 

HORACE  WALPOLE 161 

AUSTRIAN  SILHOUETTES 163 

"  S.  MARLBOROUGH  " 167 

POWDER  STAND •   .      .  170 

STRAIGHT-FRONT  BUREAU 171 

FINE-LADY  BED  AND  PATCHWORK  COUNTERPANE  175 


ILLUSTRATIONS  xm 

BED,  BOOKCASES,  AND  WRITING-TABLE 179 

SILHOUETTES  FROM  CARLSBAD 183 

WRITING-TABLE;  CHEST;  SHAVING-MIRROR 187 

CLOSER  VIEW  OF  WRITING-TABLE    . 189 

OLD  WALL-PAPER;  LIGHT-STAND;  BENJAMIN  FRANKLIN  .  193 

"  CART-BLUE  "  CHEST  AND  CHAIR 197 

KNITTED  BATH-MAT 201 

VALIANT  SHIP  MIRROR 205 

PINE  DESK  AND  COLORED  COVERLET 211 

CARVED  "  FOUR-POSTER  "      .     - 215 

TABLE,  STENCILED  ROCKER  AND  CONSTITUTION  MIRROR  219 

MAHOGANY-AND-BUTTERNUT    BUREAU    AND    LITTLEST 

DAUGHTER'S  CHAIR 223 

TURNED-LEG  LIGHT-STAND,  DANIEL  WEBSTER  AND  WITCH 

BALL 229 

STENCILED  CHAIR  AND  H-  AND  L-  HINGED  DOOR     .      .  233 

MAPLE  "LOW-POSTER";  BRAIDED  RUG 237 

SMALL  BLACK  WINDSOR  ROCKER 239 

CURLY-BIRCH  BUREAU 243 

TEN-CENT  LEATHER  TRUNK  .                            ...  247 


PROLOGUE 

SOMETIMES,  as  I  look  back  over  the  long  years,  I 
am  glad  that  when  we  went  to  housekeeping  we, 
as  the  Man  with  the  Duster  would  say,  "were  incon- 
veniently poor."  Otherwise  I  know  what  we  should 
have  done:  we  should  have  hastened  to  build,  and 
lived  to  regret  it;  we  should  have  filled  our  house 
with  furniture  which,  in  later  days,  would  have  been 
a  remission  of  sins  just  to  look  at — debased,  ungainly 
sleigh-front  bureaus,  the  lower  part  of  highboys 
bought  under  the  ingenuous  impression  that  they 
were  lowboys,  and  many  plates  of  the  too-ubiquitous 
willow-pattern.  We  might  have  been  comfortable, 
but  we  certainly  should  n't  have  been  beautiful,  and 
truly  there  is  no  bliss  in  ignorance  when  it  touches 
our  own  lives.  And  instead  of  all  these  misfortunes, 
we  moved  into  a  little  modest  white  cottage  befitting 
our  modester  income,  and  allowed  its  eighteenth- 
century  loveliness  to  be  our  gradual  education.  I 
believe  that  making  a  home  should  be  a  matter  of 
both  leisure  and  affection;  lacking  either  quality 
people  get  "a  roof  over  their  heads  —  an  address," 
but  nothing  else.  And  I  think  also  that  you  have  to 
love  your  house  as  you  do  your  children,  because  it 
exacts  a  price,  because  it  is  a  bother,  a  blessed  bother; 
you  must  be  willing  to  offer  oblation  and  sacrifice. 

Of  course  we  made  mistakes,  but  not  many;  we 
did  n't  have  money  enough  to  go  very  far  in  the  wrong 

XV 


PROLOGUE 

direction.  Besides,  all  the  time  our  house  was 
training  us;  the  minute  we  put  the  wrong  things 
against  the  walls  or  on  the  mantels,  it  rebuked  us 
gently  but  persistently,  keeping  on  until  we  had 
acknowledged  our  fault  and  removed  the  offending 
object.  All  of  which  brings  me  to  the  subject  of  my 
dear  antiquities ;  very  soon  we  realized  that  anything 
but  old  furniture  looked  silly  in  our  small  cottage, 
and,  little  by  little,  we  began  to  acquire  it,  by  pur- 
chase, by  "swapping,"  and,  occasionally,  by  fortunate 
gift  and  inheritance.  I  think  I  am  very  like  the  man 
who  "never  wanted  to  bring  up  a  young  house";  yes, 
I  greatly  resemble  him,  and  I  admit  a  frank  and 
honest  inclination  for  old  chairs  and  tables  that  so 
well  accord  with  old  walls.  But  I  also  admire  old 

furniture  in  a  new  setting;  L 's  young  house  is  a 

thousandfold  lovelier  because  of  the  rested,  restful, 
bygone  furniture  which  fills  it.  But  there  are  n't 
enough  antiquities  for  everybody,  you  insist.  Prob- 
ably not,  but  that 's  just  why  I  urge  you  to  begin 
collecting  at  once,  for  unless  you  understand  old 
furniture  you  '11  never  recognize  a  good  reproduction 
when  you  see  it,  and  until  you  know  old  furniture 
from  the  pocketbook  point  of  view  —  why,  you  just 
never  will  know  it!  After  all,  everything  does  go 
back  to  the  economic  basis,  and  we  are  more  apt  to 
appreciate  what  we  have  to  pay  for.  Most  of  us, 
too,  have  the  nucleus  of  a  collection,  or  a  few  heir- 
looms which  will  look  better  with  the  right  sort  of 


PROLOGUE  xvn 

copies  than  the  wrong  kind  of  reproductions.  When 
I  behold  some  pieces  of  furniture  I  always  want  to 
quote  Gellett  Burgess :  - 

Now  take  that  gaudy  pseudo-chair, 
A  bold,  upholsterrific  blunder. 
It  does  n't  wonder  why  it 's  there, 
We  don't  encourage  it  to  wonder. 

Sad  to  say,  a  great  deal  of  present-day  furniture  is 
blundering,  whether  it  is  upholstered  or  not;  inac- 
curate, expensive  travesties  of  once  lovely  and  for- 
gotten modes,  lacking  both  subtle  line  and  cunning 
craftsmanship,  I  am  disheartened  every  time  I  see 
these  tawdry  ameublements  advertised.  One  espe- 
cially quaint  recommendation  I  am  very  sure  I  shall 
never  forget.  It  ran,  "A  fine  William  and  Mary 
Suite  in  the  popular  Jacobean  Finish."  Poor  William 
of  Orange!  The  Battle  of  the  Boyne  might  never 
have  been  fought  at  all!  For  beyond  everything 
else,  furniture  is  tangible  history,  and  unless  you  can 
realize  its  background,  the  periods  which  made  it, 
the  influences  which  shaped  it,  why,  you  '11  do  very 
well  to  leave  collecting  alone. 

But  let 's  go  back  to  luck.  There  's  lots  of  it  left, 
really.  For  your  encouragement  I  will  say  it  has 
been  computed  by  experts  that,  unless  collections 
are  willed  to  museums  or  historical  societies,  they 
come  upon  the  market  every  twenty-five  years.  So 
there  will  always  be  something  to  buy!  Moreover, 


xvm  PROLOGUE 

the  broad  road  that  stretches  has  n't  yet  lost  its 
enchantment,  its  lure  of  beckoning  fortune.  Last 

summer  B found   an  excellent  bannister-back 

armchair  for  fifteen  dollars  —  it  had  moved  out  on 
the  piazza,  that  halfway  house  to  the  shed  —  and  I 
got  a  beautiful  old,  old  "drawn-in"  rug  and  two  pieces 
of  Stiegel  glass  for  even  less.  And  but  recently  we 
acquired  a  fine  maple  blanket-chest  for  eight  dollars, 
and  knew  the  misery  of  just  losing  the  prettiest  of 
rope-carved  bureaus,  which  went  to  an  earlier  bird 
for  only  twenty  dollars.  (I  really  do  think  it 's 
fearfully  nouveau  collector  to  boast  of  how  little  you 
pay,  but  I  am  guilty  of  this  antique  indiscretion 
because  I  want  to  show  you  that  it  actually  can  be 
done.)  But  you  must  take  time  and  trouble  for 
these  results;  you  must  rise  early  and  toil  late; 
follow  many  clues,  and  learn  to  become  "a  snapper-up 
of  unconsidered  trifles";  and,  above  all,  cultivate  a 
Favorite  Dealer,  an  Esteemed  Secondhand  Man, 
and  an  Obliging  Junkman.  Thus  will  your  collection 
increase;  your  heart  and  your  purse  grow  light  to- 
gether, although  your  money  will  also  go  farther 
than  by  any  other  method. 

All  this  if  you  are,  like  me,  "  inconveniently  poor." 
I  often  wonder  why  some  women  look  at  collecting 
from  such  a  queer  angle;  they  would  n't  expect  to 
get  their  gowns  from  Worth  or  Paquin,  yet  it  never 
seems  to  occur  to  them  that  there  are  "shabby  shops" 
on  dingy  little  side-streets  where  frequently  there 


PROLOGUE  XIX 

are  adorable  things  to  buy.  Nor,  to  continue  the 
dressmaking  analogy,  can  I  understand  why  a  woman 
who  will  study  a  fashion  magazine  with  almost 
passionate  intensity,  will  embark  so  lightly  on  the 
purchase  of  furniture  that  she  must  live  with  every 
day,  regardless  of  what  it  signifies,  of  what  goes 
together.  I  have  seen  rooms  so  unrelated  in  decora- 
tion: part  boudoir,  part  withdra wing-room,  part 
"den"  (atrocious  word!),  that  I  instinctively  remem- 
bered Claire's  advice  to  Sidonie,  "Trop  de  bijoux, 
mignonne.  .  .  .  Et  puis,  vois-tu,  avec  les  robes 
montantes  on  ne  met  pas  des  fleurs  dans  les  cheveux." 
And  yet  it  is  n't  hard  to  learn.  All  this  knowledge 
is  as  much  yours  as  mine;  where  I  got  it  you  may 
find  it,  too:  in  books,  looking  at  collections,  wander- 
ing pleasantly  through  museums. 

Perhaps,  if  you  are  rich  beyond  the  dreams  of 
avarice,  all  this  does  n't  apply  to  you;  but,  rich  or 
poor,  what  a  happy  life  is  a  collector's!  There  is 
that  best  of  all  things  —  anticipation;  there  is 
always  something  to  want.  If  I  had  known  Alex- 
ander the  Great,  he  would  n't  have  wasted  his  time 
weeping,  for  I  'd  have  persuaded  him  to  enterprise 
the  pleasant  pursuit  of  historical  glass  cup-plates, 
and  then  he  would  n't  have  had  any  desire  to  lament 
a  conquered  world.  It  would  still  be  unconquered, 
you  see;  completeness  would  ever  have  eluded  him! 

That 's  the  way  it  should  be.  Build  your  house 
like  Aladdin's,  forever  to  lack  a  window.  Mine 


xx  PROLOGUE 

lacks  two  at  present.  There  's  a  dreadful,  disfiguring 
radiator  in  my  front  hall.  It  refuses  to  be  ignored, 
and  it  straddles  insolently  across  the  only  place  I 
could  ever  hope  to  put  a  highboy.  When  it 's  out  of 
my  way  I  shall  be  a  moderately  contented  woman. 
And  then  I  want  an  Edouart  silhouette;  for  choice,  a 
dear  little  New  Orleans  fillette,  with  a  nosegay  in  her 
hand,  or  her  lips  just  parted  to  sing  "Cadet  Rousselle" 
or  some  gay  bergerette.  And  when  I  have  this,  some 
other  window  of  desire  will  swing  magically  open,  and 
so  I  shall  go  through  life,  my  reach  always  exceeding 
my  grasp  —  the  real  heaven  on  earth  for  a  true 
collector. 

A.  V.  L.  C. 

WEBSTER  COTTAGE 

HANOVER,    NEW    HAMPSHIRE 

June,  1922 


THE  NEXT-TO-NOTHING  HOUSE 

I 

THE  PICTURE  POST-CARD  HOUSE 

SOMEWHAT  back  from  the  village  street  it  stands, 
this  little,  low  eighteenth-century  cottage  of  ours; 
white- walled,  green-shuttered,  peeping  at  you  from 
behind  a  screen  of  lilac  and  syringa  bushes  and  an 
outer  ambuscade  of  the  "  green,  inverted  hills  "of 
lofty  elm  trees.  But  notwithstanding  its  demure 
shyness,  it  has  its  moments;  all  summer  long  it  is 
"snapshotted"  (is  that  a  proper  participle?)  by  the 
passing  tourist;  and  it  has  the  honor  of  having  its 
photograph  on  at  least  five  different  picture  post- 
cards for  sale  at  the  local  shops.  You  see,  it  is  one 
of  the  oldest  houses  in  a  town  that  has,  perhaps, 
pushed  aside  too  much  of  tradition  and  charm  in  its 
civic  haste  to  improve. 

Besides,  the  founder  of  Wellesley  College  was  born 
here;  and  —  more  than  anything  else  —  Daniel 
Webster  roomed  in  the  little  south  chamber  when  he 
was  a  Sophomore  at  Dartmouth.  That 's  the  real 
reason  of  its  popularity.  To  misquote  ever  so  slightly 
the  words  of  the  great  man  whose  mantle  of  fame 
protects  my  little  house,  "It  is  a  small  cottage,  but 
there  are  those  who  love  it."  I  am  one  of  them,  and 
yet,  I  confess,  the  word  "small "  is  rankling  at  present ; 


2         THE   NEXT-TO-NOTHING   HOUSE 

rankling  because,  lately,  in  a  moment  of  exaspera- 
tion, my  Candid  Friend  told  me  that  it  was  just  the 
size  for  two  maiden  ladies  and  a  pussycat.  And 
there  are  five  of  us,  besides  a  pussycat  —  a  great 
dust-colored  animal  who  stretches  himself  at  ease  on 
the  rosy  damask  of  my  Chippendale  chair,  and  fancies 
that  he  completes  the  pink-and-gray  color-scheme  of 
my  parlour.  Since  then  I  can't  help  feeling  that  we 
bulge  like  a  tenement  family. 

Yes,  just  eight  rooms  for  five  of  us  and  a  pussycat 
and  a  maid  whenever  we  can  capture  one  and  per- 
suade her  to  stay.  Would  you  feel  slummish?  You 
see,  after  all,  the  cottage  is  set  in  a  lawn  of  wide 
greenness,  and  the  rooms  are  large.  Our  hall  now 
—  usually  these  little  "  story-and-a-half  "  New  Eng- 
land houses  have  most  inhospitable  entries:  unwel- 
coming, perpendicular  stairs  which,  with  but  the 
width  of  a  doormat  between,  speed  the  parting  guest 
like  an  arrow  from  a  bow,  by  almost  pitching  him 
out  of  the  front  door.  I  have  a  theory  about  our 
little  cottage;  I  think  that  it  was  built  in  that  long- 
ago  summer  of  1790,  by  some  Southern  optimist  who 
did  n't  do  the  climate  justice,  but  who  wanted  a  hall: 
the  South  being  accustomed  to  halls  and  hospitality. 
So  he  cunningly  contrived  his  stairway,  turning  it  at 
an  abrupt  angle,  thus  saving  a  really  worth-while 
space.  Steep  the  stairs  certainly  are;  the  craggy 
Alps  would  hold  no  terrors  for  my  children,  brought 
up  as  they  have  been  in  these  domestic  mountain 


THE  PICTURE  POST-CARD  HOUSE       5 

fastnesses;  and,  as  a  reducer  of  unnecessary  avoirdu- 
pois, they  are  unequaled.  My  slenderness  commends 
them. 

But,  seriously,  I  have  never  seen  a  hall  in  so  small 
a  cottage  planned  quite  like  this,  with  an  eye  to  so 
much  room.  The  photograph  does  not  show  half  its 
charm,  or,  even,  half  the  hall.  On  either  side  of  the 
front  door  shallow  closets  are  built  in,  and  so  I  am 
spared  the  anachronism  of  an  otherwise  necessary 
hatrack.  The  angle  of  the  stairway  forms  another 
tucked-away  closet,  not  so  high,  but  deeper.  That 
is  directly  behind  my  little "  snake-foot"  light-stand — 
a  gracious  gift  and  one  of  the  most  attractive  pieces 
of  the  kind  I  have  ever  seen;  made  just  of  birch,  but 
showing  what  New  England  cabinet-makers  could  do 
in  the  way  of  delicate  line,  when  they  chose.  And 
they  often  did  choose,  despite  popular  theory  to  the 
contrary.  On  it  stands  a  brass  candlestick,  seven 
and  a  half  inches  high  and  well-proportioned;  a  sub- 
stantial base  with  cut-off  corners;  then  a  bell-shaped 
standard  and  three  lessening  bulbous  turns  —  I  paid 
a  dollar  for  each  of  them,  and  I  assure  you  I  got  a 
bargain!  Of  course,  I  might  have  this  candlestick 
wired  for  electricity;  but  since  it  is  destined  to  light 
the  hall  when  the  central  electric  lamp  fails  me,  after 
some  crashing  thunderstorm,  I  prefer  to  keep  it  as 
it  is,  and  occasionally  enjoy  the  softer  radiance  of 
earlier  days. 

On  the  left  wall,  above  the  table,  hangs  a  Consti- 


6         THE  NEXT-TO-NOTHING  HOUSE 

tution  mirror,  medium  large  and  with  very  good 
lines.  I  bought  it  some  years  ago  from  a  small  dealer, 
for  six  dollars,  and  it  was  in  such  excellent  condition 
that  all  that  had  to  be  done  was  to  put  in  a  new  glass. 
Even  the  eagle's  head  was  intact,  a  most  unusual  piece 
of  good  luck;  and  I  don't  believe  that  the  whole  mir- 
ror cost  me  more  than  nine  dollars. 

And  here  may  I  make  a  declaration  of  furniture 
truth?  Unless  the  old  glass  is  particularly  interest- 
ing and  in  good  condition,  with  a  super-beveled  edge 
and  the  charm  of  fine  antiquity,  I  think  I  should  re- 
place it  —  unless  I  were  planning  a  museum,  and 
who  that  has  a  real  home  wants  to  do  that?  Though 
I  might  keep  just  one  example  of  the  kind  described 
in  that  lovable  "Story  of  a  Bad  Boy" — "When  it 
reflected  your  face,  you  had  the  singular  pleasure  of 
not  recognizing  yourself.  It  gave  your  features  the 
appearance  of  having  been  run  through  a  mince- 
meat machine."  But  only  as  a  curious  bit  of  an- 
tiquity, you  understand. 

My  chairs  were  bargains,  too.  One  is  a  bannister- 
back  with  mushroom  finials,  and  a  curved  top  vaguely 

recalling  the  Stuart  crest.  This  L and  I  found 

in  a  little  summer  shack  on  the  shores  of  Lake 
Mascoma,  and  it  was  worth  the  stumbling,  slippery 
winter  walk  along  the  frozen  edges;  for  the  farmer- 
owner  sold  it  for  five  dollars,  and  refinishing  and  a 
wide  splint  bottom  cost  but  three  dollars  more.  (I 
have  a  particular  affection  for  that  chair;  you  see,  it 


The  front  hall  with  the  angled,  steep  stairway,  the  old  round  rug,  birch 
light-stand,  and  Constitution  mirror. 


THE  PICTURE  POST-CARD   HOUSE       9 

was  the  first  bannister-back  I  ever  owned.)  The 
slat-back,  of  course,  is  a  commoner  type;  but  still, 
four  slats  are  better  than  three,  just  as  five  slats  are 
more  desirable  than  four,  and  these  simple  chairs, 
especially  when  well  turned,  are  always  worth  buying. 
My  " butter-and-eggs  man,"  fired  by  my  antique 
enthusiasm,  rummaged  in  his  barn-loft  and  found 
this  discarded  chair,  which  he  sold  me  for  a  dollar 
and  a  half.  The  seat  was  gone,  —  naturally,  that 
was  to  be  expected,  —  but  renovation  and  a  good 
rush  bottom  (this  was  in  those  blessed  days  when 
work  of  this  sort  cost  less)  added  four  dollars  to  its 
price. 

These  chairs  stand  facing  one  another,  each  just 
beside  one  of  the  little  built-in  closet  doors.  Do  you 
like  my  silhouettes  hanging  above  them?  I  hope  so, 
for  I  do  extremely;  and,  let  me  tell  you,  I  worked  for 
a  long  time  before  I  could  get  just  the  effect  I  wanted. 
I  tried  pictures;  and,  pretty  as  these  small  gilt- 
framed  notes  of  color  were,  they  did  n't  please  me. 
Next,  I  hung  mirrors  —  small  Constitution  glasses 
which,  good  in  themselves,  became  the  space  not  at 
all.  And  then  some  luckiest  chance  made  me  send 
in  a  casual  bid  to  a  Philadelphia  auction,  and  I  got 
the  pair  for  six  dollars  and  a  half  apiece.  I  never 
expected  to,  for,  see,  they  are  marked,  with  meticu- 
lous fineness,  "Day  Fecit."  You  know  how  rare 
a  signed  silhouette  is!  Where  were  all  the  Pennsyl- 
vania collectors  that  morning,  to  let  me  buy  these 


10        THE   NEXT-TO-NOTHING  HOUSE 

treasures  for  a  fraction  of  their  value?  Besides,  they 
are  not  cut,  but  painted  in  olive-green  and  gold,  an 
unusual  combination;  and  they  are  in  their  old  ma- 
hogany frames,  the  protecting  glass  being  decorated 
in  black  and  gilt  in  early-nineteenth-century  fashion. 
They  are  not  only  a  pair  of  profiles ;  they  are  proba- 
bly betrothal  silhouettes,  Sarah  Fenton  and  Edward 
Trego,  done  in  the  long-ago  month  of  May,  1834. 
And  here  I  have  separated  them,  like  the  chairs;  no 
longer  they  hang  side  by  side,  as  was  originally  in- 
tended, but  opposite  each  other,  parted  by  the  width 
of  a  hall.  Still,  when  I  look  at  Sarah,  I  am  not  sure 
but  it  is  for  the  best.  She  seems  a  "magerful" 
woman;  certainly,  at  least,  the  dominant  half  of  the 
happy  couple. 

My  rugs  are  not  so  rare,  but  they  are  interesting, 
too,  and  fairly  old,  for  both  were  made  "up-t'-Etny- 
way"  more  than  forty  years  ago  —  a  moderately 
ancient  age  for  a  "drawrn-in"  rug.  I  bought  them 
for  a  dollar  apiece,  from  a  most  indignant  old  lady  — 
indignant,  be  it  said,  because  to  her  these  rugs  were 
so  much  rubbish,  "old  culch,"  already  nearing  their 
last  long  home  on  the  back  piazza.  To  take  those 
inferior  things  when  I  might  have  some  of  her  new 
ones,  vivid  with  greens  and  reds!  I  remember  her 
saying  disdainfully  to  her  daughter,  who  was  prepar- 
ing to  brush  them,  "Ellen,  I  want  you  should  let 
those  rugs  alone.  Don't  shake  the  dust  out.  She 
likes  everything  old." 


View  of  front  hall  showing  the  wide-boarded  front  door,  my  bannister- 
back  ohair,  and  the  silhouette  of  Edward  Trego. 


THE  PICTURE  POST-CARD   HOUSE     13 

One  is  an  oblong,  just  the  door-width,  and  a  most 
agreeable  dulled  blending  of  blacks  and  faded  roses 
and  blues,  worked  in  primitive  patterns;  for  this  old 
woman  had  the  positive  virtue  of  creating  her  own 
nai've  designs.  The  other  is  a  circle  a  little  more  than 
a  yard  in  diameter;  a  crocheted  border,  with  a  gay 
centre  of  formalized  roses  and  buds  worked  against 
an  ecru  background.  It  goes  most  becomingly  with 
a  curtain  that  separates  the  hall  from  a  narrow 
passageway,  the  flowered  surface  of  the  chintz  al- 
ways reminding  me  of  the  decoration  of  Kershaw 
valentines.  Moreover,  it  has  all  the  qualities  of  the 
curtains  that  Laura  Pendennis  and  Charlotte  bought 
at  Shoolbred's  in  Tottenham  Court  Road,  for  it  is 
"cheap  and  pleasant  and  lively  to  look  at."  Some- 
times I  think  I  '11  put  some  of  its  brightness  at  my 
narrow  windows  on  either  side  of  the  door;  but  then 
I  think  I  won't,  because  the  ecru  glass-curtains  (raw 
silk  costing  a  dollar  and  a  quarter  a  yard)  linger  so 
harmoniously  between  the  gray-brown  of  the  wall- 
paper and  the  cream  of  the  woodwork. 

The  paper  was  a  successful  experiment;  in  the 
days  of  our  decorating  youth  we  tried  several  differ- 
ent sorts,  —  dark  and  light,  figured  and  plain,  — 
despairing  until  we  found  this  copy  of  an  old  paper. 
It  is  light  enough  to  give  space  to  the  hall,  and  its 
diamonded  pattern  sufficiently  soft  to  be  restful. 
Best  of  all,  its  quiet  tones  are  a  prelude  to  the  panel 
of  quaint  wall-paper  at  the  head  of  the  stairs.  That 


14       THE  NEXT-TO-NOTHING  HOUSE 

was  brought  over  from  France  in  a  sailing  vessel  just 
after  the  War  of  1812,  and  three  Hanover  houses 
were  adorned  with  the  splendor  of  its  cargo.  This 
piece  is  all  that  is  left  to  us  of  its  Empire  classic 
charms;  and  so,  striving  to  make  it  visual  to  you,  I 
cannot  help  but  remember  the  comments  of  our  local 
paper  hanger,  we  being  as  proud  as  Punch,  you  see. 
"Well,  Professor,"  he  said  with  sympathy,  "if  I  was 
you,  an'  the  College  would  n't  do  any  better  Jn  that 
by  me,  I  Jd  paste  newspaper  over  it!  " 

How  I  wish  I  could  show  you  the  door  —  no,  I 
don't  really  intend  it  at  all  in  the  rude  way  it  sounds : 
I  mean  the  outside  of  my  Colonial  green  door,  that 
you  might  lift  the  heavy  brass  knocker,  and  observe 
how  roundly  it  raps.  It  is  n't  the  original  one;  that, 
alas,  was  purloined  the  night  before  we  moved  in; 
some  antiquarian  dilettante,  we  suspect,  for,  of  course, 
the  days  of  knocker-wrenching  for  pure  sport  were 
in  the  past,  even  with  us.  But  ours  is  much  finer 
—  one  salvaged  for  five  dollars  from  the  wreckage  of 
an  old  Salem  house,  this  knocker  that  I  must  keep 
perpetually,  blinkingly  bright. 

Living  in  a  picture  post-card  house  is  such  a  re- 
sponsibility! It  imposes  an  ideal  upon  you.  You 
know,  my  cottage  is  like  an  old,  old  lady  who  has 
been  very  beautiful  in  her  youth,  and  who  must  now 
go  softly  all  her  days.  That 's  why  she  is  so  much 
lovelier  by  candlelight :  that  is  why  her  brasses  must 
shine,  her  windowpanes  glisten,  her  shutters  be 


THE  PICTURE  POST-CARD  HOUSE      17 


firmly  latched  back,  that  she  may  not  present  the 
aspect  of  a  little,  rowdy  boy  winking  at  the  passers- 
by.  Certainly,  she  is  an  evening  beauty;  loveliest, 
I  think,  on  midsummer  nights,  when  the  full  moon, 
white  and  high,  paints  her  afresh,  and  weaves  for  her 
a  background  of  velvety  shadows. 

Sometimes,  to  be  quite  frank,  my  ideals  are  un- 
realized, and  then  I  am  unhappy.  I  am,  also,  re- 
making a  proverb.  It  begins,  "  People  who  live  in 
picture  post-card  houses,"  and  so  on.  Everybody  is 
always  coming,  and  I  love  to  have  them  come;  and, 
since  my  welcoming  tablet  has  been  placed  beside  the 
door,  the  public  believe  that  the  house  is  a  museum, 
and  "lift  up  the  latch  and  walk  in."  It 's  fortunate 


IN  THIS  HOUSE 
DANIEL  WEBSTER. OF  THE  CLASS  OF  18O1 

LIVED  DURING  A  PART  OF  HIS  STUDENT  DAYS 
IN  DARTMOUTH  COLLEGE 


HERE  ALSO  WAS  BORN,  FEBRUARY  2O,  1822 

HENFY  FOWLE  DURANT 

FOUNDER  OF  WELLESLEY  COLLEGE 


that  I  positively  adore  showing  my  house;  that  at 
almost  any  time  I  am  ready  to  drop  my  daily  tasks 
and  expound  historical  fact  to  congenial  people. 
Naturally  there  are  trying  hours  —  and  guests !  For 
instance,  I  don't  at  all  like  the  people  who  come,  and, 
gazing  at  my  old  wall-paper,  say,  "What  an  interest- 
ing bit!  But  I  know  a  woman  who  has  her  whole 


18       THE  NEXT-TO-NOTHING  HOUSE 

hall  and  drawing-room  done  in  just  this  paper,  only 
it  is  in  much  better  condition";  or  who,  perceiving 
my  few  pieces  of  Sunderland  lustre,  detail  the  inti- 
mate beauties  of  "a  whole  set,  perfectly  lovely,  a 
deeper  rose  than  this,  you  know,"  that  some  friend 
holds  in  happy  possession.  They  affect  me  very 
much  as  the  Red  Queen  did  Alice,  when  she  waved 
her  hand  triumphantly,  and  said,  "Why,  I  could 
show  you  mountains  in  comparison  to  which  this 
would  be  a  valley!  " 

Then  there  are  the  visitors  who  kindly  set  you 
right  about  your  furniture;  its  date,  nationality,  and 

previous  condition  of  servitude.  O- entertained 

the  last  one;  I  was  informed  later  that  he  was  a  dia- 
mond in  the  rough;  but  I  was  out  in  the  kitchen 
"a-spicing  marmalet,"  and  far  too  busy  to  take  any 
hand  in  his  polishing.  Fragments  like  this  drifted 
in  to  me: — 

THE  ROUGH  DIAMOND  (pausing  before  my  Empire 
card-table) .  That  Js  a  good  old  piece.  English  eight- 
eenth century. 

I  could  hear  O 's  pained  protests  that  it  was 

Massachusetts  nineteenth;  but  the  man  waved  aside 
his  objections;  "No,  English  eighteenth,"  he  said 
firmly.  "But,"  he  added  kindly,  "you  '11  learn  in 
time.  [Here  the  White  Queen  popped  into  my  head.] 
You  see,  I  have  an  aunt  who  has  a  lot  of  this  old  stuff 
lying  around;  that  's  how  I  happen  to  know  so  much 
about  it." 


The   panel   of   old   wall-paper;   probably   French   and   put   on   in   the 

year  1815. 


THE  PICTURE  POST-CARD  HOUSE      21 

But  most  people  are  so  nice,  oh,  so  very  nice  and 
appreciative.  That  little  pleased  man  who  comes 
each  year,  —  always  from  some  different  Middle 
Western  state,  —  and  asks  for  just  one  of  my  autumn 
blossoms  to  keep  in  memory  of  his  visit.  And  those 
delightful  tourists  from  the  Pacific  slope,  who  were 
prepared  to  love  and  admire  everything  they  saw.  It 
was  very  early  in  the  morning,  and  the  plants  had 
gone  out  from  the  dining-room  window-boxes  to  be 
sprayed  on  the  porch.  I  was  just  preparing  to  apolo- 
gize for  their  empty  appearance,  when  one  of  the 
women  clapped  her  hands  in  ecstasy  and  cried:  "Oh, 
those  delightful  old  kitchen  sinks!  Where  did  you 
get  them?  I  never  saw  any  before!" 

I  am  usually  truthful,  but  I  had  n't  the  heart  to 
snub  her  by  a  correction. 

My  sense  of  humor  was  not  always  working  on  time, 
however.  I  remember,  back  in  the  limbo  of  early 
household  struggles,  when  there  were  three  of  us, 
and  the  Big  Daughter  was  the  Baby,  that  a  number 
of  gigantic  people  came  to  see  the  house.  How  big 
they  were,  and  how  many  they  seemed!  Perhaps 
there  were  only  four  of  them,  but  they  appeared  to 
fill  the  cottage.  I  know  I  have  a  memory  of  one 
huge  lady  wedged  into  my  steep  stairway,  as  she 
sought  to  ascend  to  the  sacred  chamber,  asking  co- 
quettishly:  "Did  you  say  Noah  or  Daniel?" 

Maybe  I  should  not  recall  this  with  such  bitter 
pleasure  if,  after  they  had  gone,  the  Baby  had  n't 


22       THE   NEXT-TO-NOTHING  HOUSE 

run  to  me  with  outstretched  hand  and  cried:  "Look, 
Mama!  The  man  gaved  me  a  shiny  penny." 

It  was  a  quarter!  I  gasped  my  horror.  To  think 
of  being  tipped  for  having  shown  my  home!  All  its 
sanctity  seemed  violated.  "Run  after  them!  Make 
them  take  it  back !"  I  commanded. 

But  O ,  who  bore  it  more  philosophically,  said: 

"They  're  liberal.  It 's  more  than  I  used  to  give  to 
see  an  Italian  palazzo." 

And  then  the  Gordian  knot  was  cut  by  the  Baby, 
who  trotted  back  wailing,  "I  've  lost  my  shiny  penny 
down  ve  'teps." 

There  it  lies  to  this  hour,  unsought,  the  hidden 
memory  of  my  one  douceur. 

Nowadays  it  would  n't  bother  me  a  bit ;  one  of  the 
privileges  of  advancing  age  is  that  your  humor  keeps 
pace  with  your  years.  Otherwise  I  should  be  dis- 
tressed by  the  horror  of  the  moment  when  I  suddenly 
discovered,  after  showing  some  particularly  nice  New 
York  people  over  the  house,  that  I  had  developed 
a  real  professional  patter.  Like  this,  you  know. 
"And  here  Nelson  fell,"  and  "Queen  Elizabeth  slept 
on  this  very  bed."  But  I  did  n't  mind;  I  just  changed 
my  technique. 

Come  and  see  if  I  have  not.  Besides,  Our  Town 
is  worth  visiting;  quaint  and  storybookish ;  our 
College  founded  in  romantic  idealism  on  the  edge  of 
the  wilderness,  the  old  white  buildings  still  circling 
its  campus.  And  the  most  beautiful  elm  trees  in  all 


THE  PICTURE  POST-CARD   HOUSE     25 

the  world,  I  think.  Pray  observe  that  row  of  stately 
buildings.  When  you  were  little,  you  read  "What 
Katy  Did  at  School,"  didn't  you?  Well,  this  is 
where  it  all  happened,  where  Katy  and  Clover  lived; 
the  last  house  —  now  swept  out  of  the  path  of  prog- 
ress — was  the  Nunnery;  but  next  to  it, still  standing, 
is  the  old  President's  place,1  where  Berry  Searles  used 
to  tie  cakes  to  the  strings  that  the  girls  dropped  from 
the  windows;  and,  directly  around  the  corner,  is  part 
of  the  fence  past  which  Rose  Red  paraded,  adorned 
with  soap  and  towel  and  sponge,  on  her  way  to  the 
bathhouse. 

I  think  it 's  so  pleasant  to  know  this;  it  made  me 
feel  friends  at  once  with  "Hillsover."  And  that, 
when  all  is  told,  is  the  real  thing  about  life,  is  it  not? 

i  Alas,  this  too  has  been  moved  by  "civic  haste." 


MY  PARLOUR 

SOMETIMES  I  wonder  if  I  ought  to  cut  down  my 
syringa  bushes — -or,  at  least,  trim  them.  I  should 
hate  to,  they're  such  big,  blossoming  things,  laden 
with  white  flowers  twice  a  year  —  once  in  fragrant 
June,  of  course,  and  after  heavy  January  snowfalls. 
And  always  they  are  lovely,  tapping  with  intimate 
fingers  against  my  old  windows  —  but  they  do  make 
my  front  rooms  dark. 

My  parlour  presented  itself  to  me  as  a  problem  from 
the  first;  it  is  a  moderately  large  room,  sixteen  feet 
square,  with  three  doors  and  three  windows,  a  fire- 
place, and  a  huge,  intractable  radiator;  and  the 
squareness  of  it  all,  and  the  lack  of  continued  wall- 
space  were,  I  own,  baffling  in  the  beginning;  for  I  had 
been  brought  up  on  modern  city  apartment  archi- 
tecture, where  walls  jut  out  or  angle  in,  and  there  are 
bay  windows  and  cosy  corners.  I  doubt  if  ever  I 
could  have  managed  at  all,  if  I  had  n't  served  my 
'prentice-year  in  the  oldest  house  in  town.  Built  in 
1773  that  was,  and  I  had  consequently  quite  a  feeling 
of  modernity  when  we  next  moved  into  a  house  a 
whole  seventeen  years  younger. 

Frankly,  it  is  only  of  late  that  we  have  solved  our 
decorative  equation.  You  have  to  live  with  a  house 
to  understand  it;  if  it 's  the  right  sort,  your  soul  will 


MY  PARLOUR  27 

grow,  and  contentment  abide  with  you;  but  if  it 's 
the  wrong  sort,  move  out  as  fast  as  you  can,  for  it 
will  do  dreadful,  unnamable  things  to  your  character. 
Why,  I  have  seen  rooms  that  made  me  realize  that  I 
was  a  potential  murderess! 

But  will  you  not  forgive  my  past  mistakes,  and  let 
me  tell  you  of  the  pleasant  now?  You  remember 
that  the  hall  was  gray,  with  the  merest  hint  of  brown? 
Well,  the  parlour  walls  are  a  still  lighter  tint;  faint, 
fernlike  leaves  against  a  soft  background,  and  little, 
almost  imperceptible,  green  dots.  You  really  have 
to  see  it  to  understand  how  becoming  it  is ;  as  soon  as 
it  was  on  the  walls  the  room  seemed  to  grow  at  once 
more  spacious  and  sunny.  (Just  here  may  I  say 
that  I  have  never  seen  any  suitable  treatment  of  a 
Colonial  room  where  the  wall  effect  was  solid  and 
unbroken  —  with  the  exception  of  a  painted  interior, 
that  is.  Often  it  is  not  practical  to  use  the  noble 
landscape  patterns  of  a  hundred  years  ago,  —  large 
and  generous  spaces  are  needed  to  make  this  decora- 
tion valuable,  —  but  it  is  always  possible  to  avoid 
the  density  of  cartridge  paper.) 

Next,  the  woodwork  was  painted  a  glossy  cream- 
white,  and  the  old  pine  floor  a  soft,  smooth  gray,  to 
harmonize  with  the  paper.  Light  had  come  into  my 
room  as  if  by  magic;  now  I  had  to  contrive  color.  At 
the  windows  I  hung  straight  valanced  curtains  of 
pinky  chintz,  new,  but  printed  from  an  old  English 
design:  roses  climbing  a  lattice,  and  looking  as  if  a 


28       THE  NEXT-TO-NOTHING  HOUSE 

Sussex  summer  had  bloomed  itself  into  my  parlour. 
Fourteen  yards  of  this  chintz,  at  sixty-five  cents  a 
yard,  —  unbelievably  cheap  even  for  five  years  ago, 
and  to  its  everlasting  honor,  lovely  yet,  —  cost  just 
nine  dollars  and  ten  cents;  and  for  my  floor,  at  a 
mark-down  sale,  I  was  lucky  enough  to  find  a  domes- 
tic rug  in  a  Persian  pattern  for  thirty-five  more.  Of 
course  I  would  rather  have  an  authentic  Oriental 
carpet  —  who  would  n't?  But  nevertheless,  this  rug 
of  mine,  deep  rose  for  the  most  part,  with  little  notes 
of  blue  and  black  and  ecru  and  dull  green,  is  very 
attractive.  Moreover,  it  is  suited  to  my  circum- 
stances. I  recently  heard  that  a  well-known  archi- 
tect had  expressed  a  horror  at  figured  rugs;  plain, 
restful  carpets,  and  nothing  else,  should  be  used. 
Ah,  my  heart  goes  out  to  him,  but  I  also  realize  that 
he  has  never  looked  at  the  world  from  my  particular 
angle.  I  had  to  consider  my  three  children's  feet, 
and  the  geometric  progression  of  their  friends'  foot- 
steps, also  the  fact  that  there  is  a  long  Open  Season 
for  mud  in  Our  Town.  When  I  think  what  a  discreet 
taupe  would  look  like  after  a  few  weeks'  wear;  when 
I  remember  what  my  delicate  rose-carpet  did  resemble, 
I  am  convinced  of  the  wisdom  of  my  later  choice. 

Well,  when  my  curtains  were  up  and  my  rug  was 
down,  my  color-scheme  was  completed:  gentle  and 
soft,  it  still  was  radiant.  All  that  the  room  needed 
now  was  the  sheen  of  the  brass  and  copper  in  my 
candlesticks  and  bowls,  and  the  happy  glint  of  my 


MY  PARLOUR  31 

gold  picture-frames  —  frames  that  hold  glimpses  of 
country  gardens  and  vistas  of  blue  sea;  a  street  in 
distant  Segovia,  and  two  simple  heads  in  red  chalk 
done  by  an  artist  friend  of  mine.  And  there  's  a 
little  engraving  of  Daniel  Webster  when  he  was  young, 
enclosed  in  a  frame  of  really  old  gilt.  That  is  all  — 
except  my  silhouettes,  of  course.  (But  if  I  had  hung 
upon  my  walls  sepia  prints  in  fumed  oak  frames,  I 
should  have  chilled  and  deadened  my  room  beyond 
belief.) 

The  setting  was  ready;  I  could  begin  to  think  of 
the  arrangement  of  my  furniture.  My  parlour — you 
will  see  that  I  like  and  insist  on  the  wrord;  it  lacks 
the  artificiality  of  living-room,  the  pretentiousness 
of  drawing-room,  and  really  means  the  place  where 
people  sit  and  talk  —  is  a  mingling  of  styles,  as  it  is 
a  gathering  of  personalities.  It  is  the  one  room  where 
a  combination  of  types  and  periods  is  not  only  right, 
but  desirable.  But,  even  then,  you  must  be  careful 
to  have  furniture  as  agreeable  as  you  would  have 
your  guests.  None  of  my  pieces  is  later  than  eight- 
een twenty,  and  my  earliest  might  date  in  the  very 
early  seventeen  hundreds;  but  they  all  are  simi- 
lar: mahogany  or  mahogany -finished,  and  made  by 
American  joiners.  They  are  like  the  members  of 
a  happy  family  —  some  older,  some  younger,  but  all 
akin.  A  Gothic  oak  chest  or  an  Italian  Renaissance 
table,  completely  beautiful  in  themselves,  would 
destroy  the  harmony  of  the  whole  room. 


32       THE   NEXT-TO-NOTHING  HOUSE 

That  first  chair,  a  modest  type  of  Chippendale,  is 
an  especial  favorite  of  mine.  Incidentally,  it 's  a 
favorite  of  my  cat's,  the  one  he  loves  to  lie  on.  I  got 
it  for  fourteen  dollars  at  one  of  the  shops  in  Boston 
where  more  magnificent  dealers  buy  their  wares. 
You  see,  the  inconspicuous  middlemen  of  the  trade 
gather  many  treasures  together;  rather  higgledy- 
piggledy,  it  is  true,  and  it  takes  experience  and  taste 
to  select  from  so  much  furniture  flotsam.  Still,  if 
knowledge  is  money,  it 's  a  currency  we  all  can  afford 
to  have.  The  wood  of  my  chair  is  old  black  cherry, 
and  it  was  in  such  good  condition  that  only  repolish- 
ing  was  needed  —  a  matter  of  just  a  dollar  more. 
But  the  upholstery  was  terrific;  large  and  buoyant 
springs  had  been  put  in  the  old  slip-seat,  which  then 
had  been  covered  in  violent  figured  plush.  Now, 
reduced  to  normal  flatness  and  decked  in  rosy  dam- 
ask, it  is  very  engaging.  The  splat  is  vase-shaped, 
and  the  legs  are  straight  and  plain  in  the  later  Chip- 
pendale manner;  altogether,  a  comfortable,  dignified, 
self-respecting  sort  of  chair. 

As  a  connoisseur's  piece  it  is  not  remarkable  —  not 
nearly  so  fine  as  the  tip-table  beside  it.  This  I  es- 
pecially like  to  talk  about,  not  only  because  it  really 
is  the  loveliest  one  of  my  acquaintance,  but  also 
because  it  is  the  visible  proof  of  one  of  my  pet  theories, 
that  a  collector  should  buy  by  line  rather  than  by 
wood.  Wood  may  be  improved,  line  never!  When 
I  found  the  table,  —  the  dealer  had  just  bought  it 


My  Hepplewhite  tip-table,  and  the  eighteenth-century  chairs  that  usually 
live  with  "nice  people." 


MY  PARLOUR  35 

from  a  junkman  for  seventy-five  cents,  —  it  was  a 
dingy  gray,  and  the  top  so  warped  by  sun  and  rain 
that  it  was  almost  bow-shaped.  But  I  saw  how 
slenderly  beautiful  the  base  was,  with  its  delicate 
little  spade-feet ;  and  when  the  dealer  offered  it  to  me 
for  ten  dollars,  all  done  over,  I  jumped  at  the  chance. 
The  warp  was  steamed  out  of  the  top,  and  iron  bands 
on  the  back  held  it  in  shape;  scraping  and  polishing 
showed  the  mahogany  to  be  full  of  fire,  and  a  narrow 
marquetry  of  holly  and  ebony  appeared  around  the 
edge.  It  is  an  example  of  Hepplewhite,  in  which 
wood  and  line  and  inlay  have  beautifully  met.  The 
surface  is  so  softly  polished  that  you  can  see  a 
shadowy  face  as  you  bend  over  it.  That 's  the  way 
it  should  be;  never  listen  to  any  renovator  who  tells 
you  that  the  old  way  was  to  reduce  wood  to  a  dull, 
gleamless  level.  Long-ago  housekeepers  knew  better 
than  that.  One  of  our  family  traditions  is  of  my 
grandmother  telling  Claiborne,  the  small  dining-room 
boy,  always  to  polish  the  table  until  he  could  see  him- 
self grin  in  it.  And,  should  you  despise  domestic 
legend,  I  can  quote  literature  to  you :  old  Mr.  Hard- 
castle  storming  at  Charles  Marlowe,  "Then  there's 
a  mahogany  table  that  you  may  see  your  face  in!" 
I  am  dwelling  on  this  point  at  such  length  because 
the  potential  treasures  of  so  many  people  are  ruined 
by  just  this  lack  of  understanding. 

The   mirror   that    hangs    above   the   tip-table   is 
another  type  of  Constitution,  not  so  large  or  so  fine 


36       THE   NEXT-TO-NOTHING   HOUSE 

as  the  one  in  the  hall,  —  only  a  little  more  than 
twenty-five  inches,  in  fact,  —  but  certainly  cheap  at 
seven  dollars,  and  very  appropriately  related  to  the 
piece  below  it.  The  gilt  ornament  is  a  far-away  like- 
ness of  the  Prince  of  Wales's  feathers  —  the  memory 
of  "battles  long  ago,"  when  the  Black  Prince  rode 
gallantly  forward  on  the  field  of  Crecy ;  and,  although 
accounts  differ,  and  some  say  that  Hepplewhite 
followed  the  fortunes  of  the  Prince  Regent's  party, 
and  others  that  this  exquisite  designer  was  merely 
commissioned  to  make  a  set  of  drawing-room  chairs 
for  His  Royal  Highness,  certain  it  is  that,  in  the  in- 
lays and  carvings  and  brasses  of  his  particular  school, 
you  will  frequently  find  the  symbol  of  the  Three 
Feathers. 

The  chair  at  the  right  is  an  honest  eighteenth- 
century  piece  from  old  Newburyport,  not  especially 
rare,  not  particularly  common.  Twelve  dollars  it 
cost  me,  at  the  same  shop  where  I  bought  the  vase- 
backed  Chippendale,  and  renovation  and  rush-seat 
were  only  four  more.  Now  here  is  a  thing  to  remem- 
ber: if  you  pay  enough  in  the  first  place  to  ensure  a 
sturdy  frame,  your  repair  bill  will  be  just  so  much 
less.  It  amounts  to  the  same  thing  in  the  end,  but, 
personally,  I  should  rather  begin  with  my  big  expen- 
diture; you  're  surer  of  the  stability  of  your  purchase. 
But,  to  go  back  to  my  chair,  the  splat  is  pierced,  — 
the  kind  of  splat,  you  remember,  that  Chippendale 
adopted  and  embellished,  —  and  joined  firmly  to  the 


MY  PARLOUR  37 

seat.  This  one,  three  quarters  of  the  way  down, 
perhaps,  meets  a  little  separating  bar;  the  legs  are 
straight;  the  bottom  rushed  —  a  type  of  seating  I 
both  like  and  approve,  although  it  should  not  be  used 
too  constantly  in  a  room  where  color  is  desired.  It 
accords  well  with  the  Chippendale;  the  bowed  top 
has  just  the  same  simple,  harmonious  lines. 

Do  you  know  what  I  like  to  do,  at  night,  when 
I  'm  walking  up  Main  Street  alone?  I  like  to  look  at 
our  little  cottage,  and  pretend  I  don't  know  who 
lives  there,  and  wonder  if  they  're  really  nice  people. 
I  walk  by,  trying  to  feel  just  what  a  questioning 
stranger  might.  And  then  I  see  the  tops  of  my  two 
pretty  chairs  outlined  in  the  rosy  dusk  against  the 
windows,  and  I  know  that  the  occupants  are  all  they 
should  be;  I  should  "admire"  to  know  them. 

My  slant-top  desk  I  'm  very  fond  of;  it 's  the  only 
one  I  have,  to  begin  with,  and  it 's  a  good  piece  as 
well:  mahogany,  made  with  a  craftsman  plainness 
and  sense  of  line,  and  with  excellent  oval  brasses. 
A  third  virtue  is  its  inexpensiveness ;  it  really  was  a 
bargain.  You  see,  we  had  two  big,  rather  pompous, 
pseudo-Colonial  bureaus  —  wedding-presents  they 
were.  We  used  to  think  them  quite  grand,  but,  oh, 
my  dear  Friends  in  Collecting,  why  were  wisdom  and 
time  bestowed  upon  us  but  for  our  tastes  to  improve? 
As  we  lived,  we  learned;  and  we  were  fortunate  in 
finding  a  dealer  in  antiquities  who  had  a  brother  in 
the  secondhand  business,  and  who  wanted  the 


38       THE   NEXT-TO-NOTHING   HOUSE 

bureaus  badly  enough  to  take  them  and  twenty-five 
dollars,  and  give  us  the  desk  instead. 

My  dear  mother  says  that  we  have  no  sentiment 
at  all.  I  deny  it,  and  point  as  proof  to  our  sofa. 
That 's  not  valuable;  it 's  agreeable  rather  than 
elegant,  and  hardly  more  than  a  century  old;  and  yet 
we  would  not  part  with  it  for  anything.  It  has  worn 
various  liveries:  chintz  and  tapestry,  and,  at  last, 
has  settled  down  to  a  comfortable  old  age  clad  in 
moss-green  velours,  which  has  lasted  marvelously, 
for  it  was  covered  some  years  ago,  and  cost  in  those 
fortunate  times  but  ten  dollars  for  cloth  and  work. 
Of  course  I  should  love  a  slender  Sheraton  piece,  with 
a  suave  marquetry  of  satinwood  inset  above  the 
fluted  legs;  or  an  Empire  sofa,  with  spreading  claw- 
feet,  carved,  bountiful  cornucopias,  and,  perhaps 
(though,  I  admit,  this  is  asking  much  of  any  Furni- 
ture Fate),  outstretched  eagles'  heads.  But,  even  if 

I  ever  find  these  miracles,  so  long  as  O and  I  live, 

our  plain,  unpretentious  sofa  will  stay  with  us.  It  is 
endeared  by  long  association;  our  first  antique  pur- 
chase it  was,  and  we  bought  it  for  four  dollars  from 
some  people  who  were  moving  away,  and  who  also 
threw  in  an  Early  Victorian  rocking-chair  for  good 
measure. 

And  now,  walking  around  the  room,  we  have  come 
to  my  greatest  problem :  my  irrepressible  radiator  — 
an  unbeautiful  part  of  a  most  necessary  heating 
system.  At  first,  we  lived  with  shy,  self-effacing,  and 


The  slant-top  desk  I  "swapped"  two  bureaus  for;  Oriental  ginger  jars 
and  a  piece  of  Pennsylvania-Dutch  pottery  adorn  the  top. 


MY  PARLOUR  41 

quite  inefficient  registers;  and,  candidly,  we  welcomed 
the  change;  but  what  to  do  with  these  colossal  metal 
things,  which  straddled  conspicuously  across  a  valu- 
able wall-space,  and  could  n't  be  scrapped,  we  really 
did  n't  know.  And  then,  in  a  clever  friend's  charm- 
ing apartment,  I  found  just  the  solution  of  my  prob- 
lem. She  had  capitalized  her  disabilities  by  using 
her  radiators  as  the  basis  for  bookshelves  and  for 
heating  closets.  Asbestos  paper,  plus  a  water-tin 
on  the  radiator,  will  prevent  an  unpleasant  overheat- 
ing and  drying  of  the  books;  and  when  both  shelves 
and  radiator  are  painted  to  match  the  rest  of  the 
woodwork,  and  friendly,  delightful  volumes  ranged 
in  colored  rows,  you  are  really  not  conscious  of  your 
Frankenstein  monster  any  longer.  Rather,  you  have 
added  to  the  agreeable  warmth  of  your  scheme  by  the 
tones  of  your  bindings;  and,  besides,  a  room  without 
books  is  a  dead  thing,  don't  you  think?  For  further 
concealment,  I  have  a  large  snake-foot  tip-table, — 
birch,  but  stained  mahogany, — which  I  picked  up  at 
a  secondhand  shop  for  eight  dollars ;  and,  since  I 
refinished  it  myself,  that  is  all  it  cost,  unless  you  add 
the  price  of  my  immortal  soul,  which  it  very  nearly 
exacted.  It  is  completely  useful;  it  not  only  hides 
the  radiator,  but  is  an  excellent  table  on  which  to 
serve  afternoon  tea.  The  small  Dutch  chair  beside  it 
is  another  trophy  from  my  " butter-and-eggs  man's" 
barn,  and  cost  just  what  the  slat-back  did.  It  has 
been  cut  off  at  the  bottom  —  a  fate  that  many  of 


42       THE  NEXT-TO-NOTHING  HOUSE 

these  old  chairs  endured;  but  since  it  is  still  a  pleasant 
height,  especially  for  children,  I  have  not  had  it  built 
up. 

My  piano  I  do  not  count  as  a  piece  of  furniture, 
because  a  piano  never  should  be  so  regarded.  If  I 
could  but  destroy  the  popular  belief  that  a  piano  is 
essential  just  because  it  marks  social  advancement, 
I  should  feel  as  if  I  had  accomplished  a  nation-wide 
service.  "There  's  an  organ  in  the  parlour  to  give  the 
place  a  tone";  I  can't  keep  the  words  of  that  old 
street-song  out  of  my  mind !  So  often  pianos  are 
never  really  used;  seldom-opened,  draped  pinnacles 
of  respectability  they  are;  eminences  on  which  to 
place  statues  or  flower-vases,  both  inimical  to  music's 
existence.  Everard  Wemyss,  who  had  red  baize 
cloths  specially  constructed,  who  raved  about  the 
loss  of  a  protecting  button,  is  an  extreme  and  awful 
instance  of  this  type  of  mind,  which  actually  does 
exist.  An  unused  piano  is  a  decorative  vulgarity! 
Ours  is  an  upright,  as  plain  as  plain  can  be,  the 
merest  hint  of  a  carved  capital  at  the  top  of  the  legs, 
and  is  finished  in  mahogany,  of  course,  to  go  with 
the  rest  of  the  room.  I  have  no  doubt  that  a  mellow 
eighteenth-century  scrutoire,  restrained  in  line  and 
blooming  with  all  the  patina  that  worthy  age  gives, 
would  better  become  my  wall ;  but  I  am  forgiving  the 
piano  because  the  Littlest  Daughter  is  beginning  to 
play.  In  fancy,  I  can  see  the  years  going  by,  and 
O and  I  growing  older  and  sitting  there  in  the 


5 
T 
1 


MY   PARLOUR  45 

rosy  dusk,  listening,  listening  to  melodies  we  love: 
Grieg  and  Chopin,  and,  because  we  are  romantic,  old 
Jacobite  airs.  Candlelight,  candlelight  and  shadows, 
and  that  Brahms  Intermezzo  in  B  Flat!  Can  any- 
thing in  the  world  be  lovelier? 

Perhaps  you  will  think  me  meticulous,  but  I  don't 
like  piano-benches  or  stools,  either,  though  I  should 
adore  having  one  like  that  dolphin-carved  treasure 
in  the  music-room  at  Mount  Vernon.  Instead,  I  use 
one  of  my  Empire  chairs  —  an  easy,  comfortable 
seat,  and  one  well  adapted  to  the  height  of  the  piano. 
And  the  chair  just  back  of  that  —  but  maybe  I  'd 
better  describe  my  centre-table  first.  It 's  a  little 
cherry  piece,  a  Pembroke,  with  two  small  side-leaves 
that  lift  and  are  prettily  cut  off  at  the  corners.  There 
is  a  slight  inlay  of  ebony  and  holly  at  the  ends,  and 
on  each  leg,  about  an  inch  up,  is  a  narrow  band  of 
ebony  outlined  with  holly.  When  I  first  saw  it,  it 
was  standing  modestly  in  a  corner,  holding  the  cheese 
and  crackers  that  we  who  had  come  to  the  auction 
were  later  to  eat.  I  don't  believe  its  owners  had 
thought  it  worth  anything  at  all,  —  of  course  it  was 
old  and  dimmed  by  time;  nobody,  apparently,  had 
polished  it  for  fifty  years,  —  and  I  know  the  auction- 
eer was  astonished  when  I  asked  him  to  put  it  up  for 
sale.  And  then,  when  the  bidding  began,  somebody 
said  fifty  cents,  and  I  said  seventy-five,  and  my 
enemy  went  a  quarter  higher,  and  by  little,  climbing 
fractions,  it  was  soon  mine  for  a  dollar  and  seventy- 


46       THE   NEXT-TO-NOTHING  HOUSE 

five  cents.  Again  my  theory  of  buying  by  line  had 
been  justified;  besides  which,  it  was  in  such  excellent 
condition  that  three  dollars  more  refinished  it. 

On  the  right-hand  side,  facing  the  fireplace,  is  my 
bannister-back  armchair;  a  big  chair  for  a  big  man, 
and  easy  enough  for  any  reasonable  person.  I  found 
it  when  I  was  looking  for  pewter  at  a  farmhouse  a 
few  miles  beyond  us,  and  bought  it  for  ten  dollars. 
Then  it  was  painted  black,  but  since  it  is  quite  con- 
sistent to  finish  such  chairs  in  mahogany,  I  had  it 
done.  The  finest  bannister-back  chair,  and  one  of 
the  oldest  that  I  know,  was  finished  just  this  way. 
Renovation,  which  included  a  new  rush-seat,  —  for 
the  old  splint-bottom  was  too  shabby,  —  brought 
the  chair's  price  to  fifteen  dollars,  not  an  unreasonable 
one  when  you  consider  all  that  it  means.  You  see, 
it 's  a  country  cousin  of  the  stately  Restoration 
chair,  and  a  type  that  persisted  long  after  the  House 
of  Hanover  came  to  rule  England.  I  don't  suppose 
that  the  rustic  joiner  who  carved  the  crested  top 
had  any  idea  he  was  saying  in  furniture  language 
that  King  Charles  had  come  to  his  own  again;  but 
so  he  was.  I  have  seen  better  crests,  of  course;  this 
one  is  quite  crude;  but  the  bulbous-turned  brace  is 
so  unusually  fine  that  I  can  honestly  commend  it. 

The  side-chair  at  the  left  is  even  better.  It  is 
what  is  known  as  a  Transition  type,  which  means 
that  it  borrowed  its  back  from  the  Dutch  motifs 
which  William  of  Orange  brought  with  him  to 


The  old  Franklin  "fire-frame,"  and  my  steeple-top  andirons. 


MY  PARLOUR  49 

England,  but  retained  the  baluster-and-pear  turning 
and  Spanish  feet  which  characterized  the  later 
Jacobean  period.  Theoretically,  these  two  opposing 
types  of  straight  and  bending  line  should  not  be 
combined;  but  here  they  come  together  in  perfect 
harmony,  because  the  splat,  while  keeping  its  shape, 
has  abandoned  its  curve.  My  chair  is  one  of  the 
best  balanced  I  have  seen,  worthy  of  the  old  city  it 
came  from,  —  Portsmouth,  —  where  it  started  life, 
in  the  early  seventeen  hundreds,  as  one  of  a  set 
of  six.  Alas,  that  so  much  beauty  should  perish  from 
the  earth!  All  those  others  were  chopped  up  and 
burned  for  firewood.  I  bought  mine  from  its  noble 
rescuer  for  ten  dollars,  and,  as  the  rush-seat  was 
small,  the  whole  chair  cost  me  just  fourteen. 

Maybe  I  am  too  boastful  of  my  fireplace;  but  then, 
Franklin  fire-frames  are  so  rare,  —  not  made  at  all 
nowadays,  —  and  mine  is  a  very  good  one.  Besides, 
I  did  n't  put  it  there;  Franklin  invented  his  fuel-sav- 
ing stoves  in  1742,  and  mine  has  always  stood  where 
it  does  now.  Therefore  I  can  be  as  impersonally 
proud  of  it  as  I  like,  and  I  am  rejoiced  at  understand- 
ing it.  The  lines  have  an  almost  Attic  simplicity, 
and  its  spiritual  discipline  has  dominated  my  whole 
room.  That 's  the  real  beauty  of  Colonial  decora- 
tion properly  valued.  Superfluous  furnishings  seem 
a  waste  of  ideas,  and  a  desolation  of  bad  taste.  You 
observe  that  the  whole  scheme  of  my  mantel  decora- 
tion is  restrained  —  a  bust  of  Dante,  four  candle- 


50       THE   NEXT-TO-NOTHING   HOUSE 

sticks,  and  as  many  silhouettes.  The  central  candle- 
sticks are  French,  and  at  a  Paris  rag-fair  cost  two 
francs.  They  are  very  old,  as  the  disk  to  catch  the 
wax-drip  indicates.  The  others  are  American,  and 
I  paid  two  dollars  for  the  pair  at  a  small  shop  on 
Charles  Street.  My  steeple- top  andirons  and  shovel 
and  tongs  I  got  from  my  Favorite  Junkman  for 
twenty-five  dollars,  and,  almost  immediately,  a 
dealer  who  had  heard  of  them  offered  me,  without 
seeing  them,  double  the  price  I  had  paid.  To-day, 
at  an  expensive  city  shop,  I  suppose  they  would  bring 
a  hundred.  I  still  live  in  hopes  of  buying  the  com- 
pleting jamb-hooks  from  my  tall,  lonely  old  man 
across  the  river.  You  can  still  see  the  places  where 
once  they  were  on  the  stately  white  columns,  and 
there,  too,  are  the  markings  of  a  pair  of  knobs,  meant, 
I  suppose,  to  hold  a  fan-screen  and  a  tiny  hearth- 
brush.  These  I  won't  replace  until  I  can  find  just 
the  blue-and-rose  Battersea  enamel  pair  which  my 
collecting  soul  craves. 

The  small  ones,  under  the  Empire  mirror,  are 
Austrian;  green  and  white  glass  set  in  a  brass  rim, 
and  not  at  all  expensive;  only  a  dollar  and  a  half  they 
were.  But  they  support  my  mirror,  my  "  tabernacle 
mirror"  as  some  English  authorities  would  call  it, 
quite  as  well  as  if  they  were  more  costly,  and  they 
have  the  satisfactory  quality  of  harmonizing  them- 
selves with  the  surroundings.  My  mirror,  too,  was  a 
bargain:  just  eight  dollars,  all  done  over;  mahogany, 


The   Empire  corner,   showing   the   tabernacle   mirror   and   rare   Miers 

silhouettes. 


MY  PARLOUR  53 

with  a  shallow-carved  cornice,  minikin  brass  rosettes, 
and  the  slender  grooving  that  recalls  an  earlier 
Sheraton  influence.  This  is  my  Empire  group:  the 
mahogany  work-table  (eight  dollars,  too)  has  well- 
proportioned,  tapering,  rope-carved  legs,  and  two 
small  drawers  with  brass  pulls,  a  very  good  example 
of  early-nineteenth-century  American  cabinet-making ; 
while  my  chair  —  its  mate  stands  by  the  piano,  you 
remember  —  was  made  at  the  same  period;  Daniel 
Webster  is  reputed  to  have  had  a  set  of  them  when 
he  first  went  to  housekeeping.  Is  n't  that  interest- 
ing? Not  that  these  of  mine  were  even  remotely 
connected  with  his  life,  for  I  bought  them  at  a  winter 
sale  in  Vermont,  at  a  house  where  they  had  always 
lived.  For  five  dollars  the  pair,  too!  They  were  so 
excellently  preserved  that  all  they  needed  was  rub- 
bing down  and  re-upholstering,  which  I  did  myself — 
and  made  an  awful  mistake.  Thrilled  with  the 
feeling  that  I  was  completing  my  parlour,  I  covered 
the  slip-seats  with  some  of  my  rose  chintz,  and,  my 
dears,  the  result  was  appalling!  Even  the  lovable 
carved  rosette  and  the  delicate  supporting  acanthus 
leaves  looked  muddled.  So  I  ripped  the  material 
off,  and  replaced  it  with  a  thoroughly  Empire  fabric, 
inch-wide  stripes  of  deep  gray  alternating  with  a 
lighter  band  worked  in  small  and  patterned  bouquets. 
And  now  my  chairs  are  appropriately  dressed,  for  the 
striped  design  carries  out  all  the  rhythm  of  their  lines. 
Can  you  see  my  silhouettes  at  all?  I  wish  you 


54       THE  NEXT-TO-NOTHING  HOUSE 

could,  for  they  deserve  your  careful  attention;  you 
must  let  me  show  them  to  you  some  time.  I  know 
nothing  that  so  much  adds  to  the  presence  of  an  old 
house,  that  is  so  eloquent  of  time  past,  as  these  art- 
less little  profiles.  My  adorable  Bache  lady,  my  two 
fine,  gilt-touched  Miers,  in  the  old  pear- wood  frames, 

and  O 's  frilled  India-ink  ancestor,  —  familiarly 

known  as  the  "Blot  on  the  Scutcheon,"  because  he 
was  a  Loyalist,  —  all  were  given  to  me,  just  as  my 
pictures  were.  The  six  others  come  to  twenty-eight 
dollars,  and  only  one  was  a  real  extravagance.  And 
yet,  can  I  call  him  so?  A  signed  "silhouette  coloree," 
not  cut  by  machine,  or"scissorgraphed,"  but  painted 
with  meticulous  care,  for  only  fifteen  dollars.  It  is 
nothing  at  all !  I  bought  it  at  a  most  exclusive  shop 
on  a  most  exclusive  street,  probably  because  the 
proprietor,  as  he  frankly  admits,  knows  nothing 
about  silhouettes.  (By  the  way,  that  is  frequently 
the  luck  by  which  most  poor  but  "knowledgeable" 
collectors  come  by  their  treasures!)  I  do  want  to 
tell  you  the  story,  for  it  is  one  of  my  most  romantic 
"  antiquing ' '  episodes. 

When  I  bought  this  handsome  gentleman  in  his 
oval  frame  of  repousse  brass,  I  knew  that  he  was 
Governor  Arnold  of  Rhode  Island,  and  that  he  had 
recently  come  from  a  Newport  collection.  But  such 
insufficient  knowledge  failed  to  satisfy  me;  I  pro- 
ceeded to  look  him  up  in  our  College  Library,  with 
the  result  that  I  found  him  to  be  Lemuel  Hastings 


Governor  Lemuel   Hastings   Arnold  of  Rhode   Island,  who  graduated 
from  Dartmouth  College  in  1811. 


MY  PARLOUR  57 

Arnold  of  the  Class  of  1811,  Dartmouth  College. 
From  the  costume  the  profile  must  have  been  made 
about  the  time  of  his  graduation;  possibly  it  was  the 
equivalent  of  that  time  for  a  Senior  photograph. 
Think  of  it  —  he  had  come  back  to  his  Alma  Mater 
after  all  these  voyaging  years;  come  back,  still  young, 
to  rest  in  my  old  parlour,  where,  no  doubt,  he  had 
often  sat  and  talked  through  long,  candlelit  evenings 
about  Predestination  and  Infant  Damnation,  as 
was  the  cheerful  fashion  of  those  bygone  days.  • 

Oh,  I  do  love  my  square,  many-doored,  three- 
windowed  parlour,  perhaps  all  the  more  because  it 
was  so  hard  to  achieve.  Of  course  it 's  frightfully 
difficult  to  do  twentieth-century  housekeeping  in  an 
eighteenth-century  cottage;  but,  honestly,  I  don't 
want  to  live  anywhere  else.  I  know,  because  the 
other  night  I  dreamed  an  awful  dream  —  a  night- 
mare! It  appeared  that  I  had  gone  away  for  a  brief 
time,  and  the  Powers  That  Be  had  nefariously  given 
my  dear  house  to  somebody  else.  I  came  back  to 
find  my  old  furniture  displaced,  my  cherished  rooms 
full  of  Mission  and  golden  oak. 

As  I  left  in  wrath  and  indignation,  my  supplanter 
remarked  sweetly:  "But  you  '11  come  and  see  me 
again,  won't  you?" 

"  What,  Madam!  After  this  desecration!  "  I  cried. 
"Never!!!"  (Usually  I  am  not  so  Johnsonian  in  my 
phrasing;  I  suppose  despair  drove  me  to  it.)  I 
stalked  out  of  the  house  —  and  I  woke  up  crying. 


58       THE   NEXT-TO-NOTHING  HOUSE 

Now  O ,  who  is  a  bit  of  a  Freudian,  insists  that 

my  subconscious  self  was  really  dramatizing  a  desire 
to  be  rid  of  my  antique  cares;  and  when  I  argued  the 
question  hotly,  he  replied  that  my  resistance  merely 
proved  the  psychological  point.  But  it  is  n't  so  at 
all.  I  love  my  Next-to-Nothing  House  the  way  I  do 
my  family;  exactingly,  even,  at  times,  reprovingly, 
but  always  with  an  abiding  affection. 


Ill 

THE  PARLOUR  BEDROOM 

STRAIGHT  from  the  parlour  you  step  into  the 
"parlour  bedroom,"  a  small  space  that  in  reality 
was  just  cut  off  from  the  length  of  the  old  farm 
kitchen.  Yet,  frankly,  I  am  very  proud  of  it,  for 
it  is  quite  twelve  feet  square  and  has  two  doors, 
whereas,  most  of  these  spare  chambers  were  large 
enough  to  hold  only  a  bed,  a  bureau,  and  a  chair  (our 
ancestors'  hospitality  being  infinitely  greater  than 
the  space  they  had  to  bestow),  and  boasted  but  one 
entrance.  So,  you  see,  my  room  has  a  certain  aspect 
of  grandeur.  Also  it  has  had  varying  fortunes :  first 
it  was  a  day  nursery  (we  fairly  rattled  round  in  our 
eight  rooms  when  the  Big  Daughter  was  the  only 
baby),  then  it  was  a  guestroom,  and  now,  at  last,  it 
has  come  to  the  high  estate  of  O 's  study. 

The  reason  I  am  so  positive  about  the  dimensions 
is  because,  very  recently,  I  have  spent  two  happy 
days  on  my  hands  and  knees,  painting  the  floor  a 
warm  yellow-brown.  Theoretically,  I  loathe  paint- 
ing; actually,  clad  in  large,  protecting  rubber  gloves 
and  sheltering  apron,  with  all  the  time  in  the  world 
at  my  disposal,  I  love  to  spend  leisurely  mornings 
making  a  floor  just  the  color  I  want  it  to  be.  And 
this  is  such  a  delightful  floor,  with  the  old,  old, 
irregular  boards,  some  of  them  more  than  twenty 


60       THE  NEXT-TO-NOTHING  HOUSE 

inches  wide.  Even  when  my  ship  comes  in,  or  the 
Powers  That  Be  see  fit  to  bestow  upon  me  the 
suavity  of  polished  oak,  never,  never  shall  this  floor 
be  changed!  Such  a  nice  color  it  is,  too.  Spruce  was 
over-yellow,  and  brown  too  dark  and  uninteresting, 
so  I  just  mixed  them  both  together  and  stirred  and 
stirred,  and  the  result  is  a  sunlit  effect,  precisely  the 
hue  I  wanted;  for  the  study  had  to  glow,  to  deepen 
the  roses  of  the  parlour  into  a  crimson,  to  warm  the 
buffs  of  the  dining-room  into  richer  tones  —  and  all 
to  live  up  to  our  splendid,  gorgeous  coverlet,  an  heir- 
loom from  the  eighteenth-century  Lowlands,  which 
hangs  like  a  gallant  banner  on  the  wall. 

No  mediaeval  chatelaine  ever  was  prouder  of  her 
costly  tapestries  of  haute-lisse  than  I  am  of  this  simple, 
homespun  web.  The  pattern  is  very  old,  far  older 
than  the  coverlet,  I  suppose;  the  bow-and-arrow 
design  might  date  back  even  to  Anglo-Saxon  days. 
The  warp  is  linen  —  in  itself  a  sign  of  many  years  — 
and  it  is  overshot  with  wools  of  crimson  and  deep 
indigo,  until  it  is  as  rich  in  color  as  an  Oriental  rug. 
And  yet,  with  all  its  beauty,  it  is  a  wholesome, 
homely  thing;  it  has  qualities  that  completely  unite 
it  in  feeling  with  my  woven  rag  carpet,  a  "hit-or- 
miss-it "  pattern,  which  has  reds  and  blues  and  ecrus 
and  blacks  mingled  with  kaleidoscopic  charm. 

Now  I  was  lucky  about  that,  for  I  bought  it  at 
a  country-town  auction  for  two  dollars  and  thirty 
cents.  Yards  and  yards  I  bought  —  enough  to  make 


O 's  "linen-warp"  coverlet  from  eighteenth-century  Scotland. 


63 

a  nine-foot  square  for  the  study,  and  to  cover  the 
ell-chamber.  Often  this  happens:  nobody  wants 
these  old  carpets;  maybe  the  colors  are  not  right; 
perhaps  the  rural  buyers  have  grander  Axminster 
aspirations;  more  than  once  I  Ve  seen  rag  rugs  liter- 
ally go  a-begging.  But  for  me  it  was  gallant  good  for- 
tune; and  when  I  had  paid  three  dollars  to  have  it 
dry-cleansed,  you  can  see  that  the  cost  was  not  ex- 
cessive. Let 's  call  it  two  dollars  and  sixty-five  cents. 
Do  you  like  my  color-scheme?  Then  let  me  show 
you  the  whole  room,  that  you  may  observe  its  har- 
monies. We  '11  walk  in  through  the  parlour  and  out 
by  the  dining-room.  (Ah,  those  two  doors  are  such 
blessed  avenues  of  escape!  Never  are  you  cribbed, 
cabined,  and  confined.  O can  elude  an  after- 
noon tea-party  with  easy  unconcern;  and  bands  of 
inquiring  students  be  piloted  to  the  safe  haven  of 
the  study,  without  disturbing  the  rest  of  the  family. 
Take  my  advice,  especially  if  you  are  professor-people, 
and  always  have  two  doors.)  As  you  enter,  at  the 
left  hand,  is  a  small  walnut  dictionary-table  —  early 
nineteenth  century,  prettily  turned,  and  with  wood 

deepened  to  real  beauty  by  time.     O 's  father 

picked  it  up  years  ago  in  the  Provinces,  for  a  small 
sum;  and,  as  it  was  gently  used,  it  never  has  need- 
ed anything  more  than  occasional  waxing  and  rub- 
bing. Brown  walnut  is  as  lovely  a  wood  as  this  world 
affords,  and  our  table  has  all  the  golden  lights  and 
glints  that  belong  to  it  when  properly  finished. 


64       THE  NEXT-TO-NOTHING  HOUSE 

And  now  we  are  come  to  the  silhouette  wall.  The 
paper,  a  warm,  deep-toned  ecru  with  a  little  self- 
figure  running  over  it  (not  enough  to  break  the  unity 
but  sufficient  for  interest),  makes  an  admirable  back- 
ground for  these  shadows  of  the  past.  I  always 
wanted  to  have  a  silhouette  gallery,  and  here  was  my 
chance.  You  know,  one  of  the  explanations  of  the 
name  is  that  Etienne  de  Silhouette,  wise  and  luckless 
Minister  of  Finance  to  prodigal  Louis  the  Fifteenth, 
was  so  charmed  with  these  profiles  a  la  Pompadour,  as 
they  used  to  be  called  in  eighteenth-century  France, 
that  he  devoted  a  whole  room  in  his  chateau  to  their 
displaying.  That 's  why  I  think  a  silhouette  wall  in 
a  French  professor's  study  is  eminently  appropriate. 
It 's  an  interesting  group,  is  n't  it?  And  valuable! 
It  numbers  two  extremely  rare  Austrian  shades  and 
four  fine  American  profilists:  Brown,  Doyle,  Hanks, 
and  Howard.  The  rest  are  nameless,  as  so  many  of 
these  bygone  shadows  are;  but  all  are  excellently 
done,  with,  perhaps,  the  exception  of  the  small  boy 

at  the  right,  for  that  is  O ,"scissorgraphed"  at 

the  age  of  fourteen,  on  a  windy  Boston  street -corner. 
(Like  rosemary,  it  is  for  remembrance.) 

Of  course,  a  photograph  never  can  do  silhouettes 
justice;  but  still,  can't  you  see  the  abstraction  and 
dignity  of  worthy  Dr.  Prince  as  he  walked  through 
Salem  streets,  knee-breeched,  shovel-hatted,  literally 
in  a  Brown  study;  or  the  characteristic  pose  of  Mr. 
William  Oliver,  locally  known  as  "Old  Step-Over-to- 


THE  PARLOUR  BEDROOM  67 

Lynn"  (you  perceive  him  at  the  moment  of  stepping) ; 
or  the  extreme  delicacy  of  that  miniature  head  cut  by 
Everett  Howard  —  a  shadow  portrait  as  rare  as  it 
is  small?  A  few  of  the  frames  are  old,  but  most  of 
them  are  new.  And  here,  by  the  way,  is  a  silhouette 
suggestion  for  you:  if  you  have  one  of  these  anti- 
quated profiles,  but  lack  a  frame,  do  not  despair,  but 
instead  bind  it  \vith  simple  black  passepartout,  and 
the  effect  will  be  both  becoming  and  appropriate. 
Not  only  was  this  method  employed  in  America,  but 
I  have  two  eighteenth-century  Austrian  silhouettes 
which  are  miracles  of  black-and-gold  passepartout 
delicacy.  The  group,  framing  and  all,  cost  me 
twenty-three  dollars  (to  be  quite  frank,  four  of  the 
most  valuable  were  given  to  me);  but  even  a  con- 
servative estimate  would  place  their  worth  well 
beyond  a  hundred. 

The  armchair  I  bought,  all  done  over,  at  a  country 
dealer's,  for  the  inconsiderable  sum  of  six  dollars  and 
a  half.  A  late  form  of  Windsor,  it  has  traits  that 
hark  back  to  earlier  centuries.  You  notice  how  the 
arms  end  in  crudely  carved  hands?  Well,  that 's  a 
characteristic  of  certain  Gothic  oak  armchairs  of  the 
early  sixteenth  century,  and  the  motif  may  date  back 
to  classic  times,  for  all  I  know.  The  frame  is  maple, 
the  seat  and  curved  top-rail,  old  pine;  and  though  it 
is  not  at  all  beautiful,  it  is  sturdy,  sensible,  and  most 
comfortable  —  very  much  the  type  of  chair  you  can 
imagine  a  village  judge  sitting  in  while  dispensing 
wise  counsel  to  his  rural  clients. 


68       THE   NEXT-TO-NOTHING  HOUSE 

The  writing-table  —  no  slant- top  desk  would  fit 
into  the  room,  for  the  light  from  the  one  window 
must  fall  just  so  to  be  practical  —  is  maple,  stained 
mahogany,  and,  including  renovation,  cost  me  six- 
teen dollars.  It  is  of  the  Pembroke  type,  being 
supported  by  little  wooden  rests  which  pull  out  in 
the  oddest  fashion;  and  the  legs  are  rope-carved  and 
beautifully  proportioned,  a  large  rope  tapering  down 
to  a  small  foot.  Now,  rope-carving  at  its  best  is 
exceedingly  good,  indeed;  but  it  can  be  very  clumsy, 
and,  if  I  were  you,  I  should  always  try  to  pick  out 
the  kind  that  tapers;  it  has  the  same  relation  to 
furniture  that  a  shapely  ankle  bore  to  the  delicate 
limbs  of  our  Victorian  ancestresses. 

Have  you  noticed  my  Dutch  curtains?  They  're 
the  recent  solution  to  a  problem  that  very  much 
vexed  me.  At  first,  I  tried  to  carry  out  the  scheme 
of  blue  and  crimson,  with  the  result  that  the  curtains 
formed  a  big,  dark  blot  at  the  window.  And  so  I 
ruthlessly  discarded  them,  and  bought,  instead, 
four  yards  of  unbleached  cotton  at  fifteen  cents  a 
yard,  and  with  blue  wool  cross-stitched  down  bands 
of  red  raw  silk;  brilliant  enough  by  day,  but,  by  arti- 
ficial light,  fairly  luminous.  The  silk  cost  two  dol- 
lars a  yard,  and  as  I  used  less  than  eighteen  inches, 
that  meant  only  another  dollar.  The  cross-stitching 
was  continued  around  the  sides  and  top,  and  the 
effect  is  very  like  some  Russian  peasant-work  I  have 
just  seen.  Naturally,  all  this  meant  time  and 


The  judicial-looking  Windsor  armchair  with  carved  hands. 


THE  PARLOUR  BEDROOM  71 

trouble;  but  then,  very  little  that 's  worth  while  in 
this  workaday  world  is  n't  purchased  just  this  way. 
And,  if  my  curtains  had  cost  ten,  twenty  times  as 
much,  they  could  n't  be  lovelier  or  more  appropri- 
ate; for  harmony,  thank  Heaven!  is  not  the  hand- 
maid to  mere  money. 

And  now  you  are  round  to  our  big  lantern-clock, 
which  journeying  friends  brought  us  from  Bavaria. 
It  is  not  old,  but  a  clever  modern  copy  of  one  of  the 
most  ancient  types  of  clock,  and  its  black-figured, 
deep-cream  dial  and  brass  pendulum  and  weights 
fit  admirably  into  my  color-scheme.  The  little  chair 
below  it,  another  late  Windsor  variant,  I  picked  up 

recently  at  a  " shabby  shop,"  and  as  O painted 

it,  will  add  only  the  price  of  a  small  can  of  black 
Jap-a-lac. 

Please  look  with  attention  at  the  built-in  book- 
shelves; I  don't  believe  you  '11  ever  see  them  so  tidy 
again.  Our  house  literally  bulges  books:  every  room 
except  the  dining-room  has  some,  and  occasionally 
they  stray  even  in  there;  while,  as  for  the  study,  at 
times  that  resembles  Vierge's  "Don  Quixote  in  His 
Library."  Still  I  should  rather  have  it  that  way; 

how  awful  it  would  be  to  have  to  say,  "O ,  your 

Alice  wants  to  read";  and  then  wait  for  glass  doors 
to  be  opened,  and  a  brightly  bound,  stiff -backed, 
unread  volume  to  be  placed  in  my  hands.  Ah,  that 
book,  "  Vera,"  haunts  me! 

The    slat-back    armchair,    a   characteristic    late- 


72       THE   NEXT-TO-NOTHING  HOUSE 

eighteenth-century  type,  —  the  finials,  and  the  well- 
turned  arms  that  extend  just  half  the  width  of  the 
seat,  are  particularly  good  points,  —  I  bought  at  a 
farmhouse  in  the  sleepy  little  across-the-river  village, 
for  four  dollars  and  a  half,  and  a  country  joiner 
charged  me  three  dollars  to  paint  it  black  and  put  in 
a  splint-bottom.  It  is  a  comfortable  chair  to  sit  and 
rock  and  read  in,  though  honesty  compels  me  to  say 
that,  if  you  swayed  too  vigorously,  you  might  go  over 
backward.  And  yet  these  short  little  rockers,  just 
the  same  length  in  front  as  behind,  prove  the  chair's 
ancientry,  hence  its  collecting  desirableness. 

The  couch  I  am  rather  proud  of,  too;  it 's  not  only 
a  couch  but  a  strategic  move,  a  bit  of  fine  diplomacy. 
For,  beyond  any  other  piece  of  furniture,  I  detest  a 
Morris  chair:  I  detest  it  on  principle,  and,  besides,  I 
knew  that  in  this  little  study  it  would  sprawl  all  over 
the  floor  in  most  unseemly  fashion.  So  I  said  to 
O —  — ,  "What  a  pity  it  is  that  we  have  n't  room  for 
both  a  Morris  chair  and  a  couch.  Still,  since  we 
must  choose,  I  do  think  a  couch  will  be  more  generally 
useful  and  comfortable. "  And  so  we  compromised  on 
a  couch.  (Shall  T  count  its  price?  You  see,  we  had 
had  it  around  the  house  forever,  and  I  really  don't 
remember.  Then,  too,  a  couch  is  something  you  can 
pay  as  much  or  as  little  for  as  you  please;  I  should 
suppose  a  good  average  was  about  fifteen  dollars.) 
The  cushions  —  two  covered  with  blue  endurance 
cloth,  the  third  with  unbleached  cotton,  a  broad 


THE  PARLOUR  BEDROOM  75 

strip  of  blue  cross-stitched  on  with  crimson  silk 
adorning  the  centre  —  were,  altogether,  four  dollars 
and  eleven  cents;  but,  of  course,  it  is  the  more  expen- 
sive coverlet  that  makes  the  couch's  beauty  and 
interest.  This  is  a  fine  piece  of  double  weaving,  in 
the  pattern  that  is  known  in  Virginia  as  "Doors  and 
Windows,"  and  the  color  is  resplendent,  the  very 
essence  of  blue,  a  high  tribute  to  the  worth  of  the  old 
indigo  dye-pot.  It  came  from  a  little  shop  in  West 
Philadelphia,  and  cost  only  twenty  dollars. 

I  like  a  map  for  a  man's  study,  don't  you?  Natu- 
rally, if  I  had  my  way,  I  'd  hang  an  early  map  of  New 
Hampshire  in  its  place,  but  my  family  seem  to  pre- 
fer the  usefulness  of  this  one.  An  old  mantelpiece, 
plain  and  not  especially  beautiful,  used  to  stand 
where  the  map  now  hangs ;  but,  as  the  chimney  com- 
munication had  been  destroyed,  and  there  was  no 
way  of  adjusting  even  a  Franklin  stove  without  an 
ugly  and  unconcealable  pipe  showing,  I  had  it  taken 
down,  for  a  mantel  not  related  to  a  fireplace  is  pur- 
poseless decoration,  and  one  smacking  too  much  of 
the  cheap  modern  flat.  But,  alas,  I  could  not  so  eas- 
ily do  away  with  the  old  stovepipe  hole  just  above 
the  door  that  leads  to  the  dining-room;  to  take  it 
down  would  have  been  to  tear  the  wall  to  pieces,  so 
here  I  hung  a  concealing  plate,  fortunately  colored 
in  harmony  with  the  room.  Delightful  in  itself,  with 
a  slightly  lustred  edge  and  border  decoration  of  dark- 
rose  and  light-brown  scrolls,  it  is  interesting  because 


76       THE   NEXT-TO-NOTHING   HOUSE 

it  once  belonged  to  Andrew  Jackson,  and  was  part 
of  a  set  of  china  given  by  him  to  my  grandfather,  a 
neighbor  and  close  friend  in  those  early  Nashville 
days.  The  pattern  is  called  "Corinthian,"  a  ware 
that  I  seem  to  remember  having  seen  advertised  in 
my  beloved  "Columbian  Centinel,"  in  the  eighteen- 
twenties.  But  I  do  wonder  sometimes  what  Daniel 
Webster  would  say,  if  ever  he  returned,  to  see  his 
old-time  enemy's  plate  adorning  a  Hanover  wall! 

The  little  brass  kettle  there  in  the  corner  —  can 
you  see  it?  —  I  picked  up  at  my  Obliging  Junkman's 
for  a  dollar.  They  are  easily  found  in  the  North 
Country,  these  little  kettles,  and  they  are  highly 
usable  in  a  variety  of  ways:  to  fill  with  flowers,  to 
hold  a  fern  pot,  or,  as  I  have  done  here,  for  a  small 
wastebasket.  You  must  admit  that  it  is  as  fire- 
proof as  one  of  those  dappled  metal  abominations 
that  desolate  so  many  men's  studies,  and  that  it 's 
infinitely  better-looking.  I  should  like  to  show  it  to 
you,  really,  just  to  let  you  see  how  eminently  prac- 
tical it  is. 

And,  oh,  I  do  wish  you  could  look  at  my  Scotch 
coverlet,  as  it  hangs  there  against  the  wall  —  so  fine, 
so  glowing;  the  colors  of  blue  and  crimson  and  deep 
ecru  continued  in  the  hooked  rug  below.  Ah,  when- 
ever I  behold  that  rug,  I  know  I  'm  a  lucky  lady! 
It  was  presented  to  me  by  a  friend  whose  own  collec- 
tion is  a  marvel.  The  edge  is  black,  the  background 
a  pleasant  mingling  of  light  browns,  grays,  and 


The  "Corinthian"  plate;  once  owned  by  Andrew  Jackson. 


THE  PARLOUR  BEDROOM  79 

touches  of  coral;  and  though  it  is  small  (the  dimen- 
sions are  two  feet  by  three  and  an  inch  )  it  is  the  most 
notable  rug  in  my  possession.  In  the  centre  is  the 
American  shield,  very  much  like  the  shields  that  my 
eagle  cup-plates  bear,  and  thirty-one  stars  are  worked 
around  the  shield  and  in  the  corners.  In  the  days 
of  its  youth  it  was  a  swaggering,  truculent  bit  of 
color.  Time,  thank  goodness,  has  beautifully  soft- 
ened all  that,  while  still  leaving  the  patriotic  senti- 
ment. For  two  reasons  it  does  not  lie  upon  the  floor : 
first,  because  it  is  too  valuable  (patriotic  designs 
always  ranking  higher,  from  a  connoisseur's  point  of 
view,  than  any  other  pattern) ;  second,  —  and  very 
much  greater,  —  because  it 's  a  national  emblem. 
I  have  never  been  able  to  understand  why  loyal  and 
high-minded  New  England  women  persisted  in  work- 
ing the  two  sacred  symbols,  the  Cross  and  the  Flag, 
on  everyday  rugs!  Its  beauty  of  color,  as  well  as 
its  significance,  justifies  its  lying  in  a  glowing  strip 
across  my  old  linen-chest,  in  happy  companionship 
with  the  coverlet  above  it. 

As  for  the  pine  chest,  a  good  eighteenth-century 
piece,  I  bought  that  for  eighteen  dollars,  and  painted 
it  black  myself.  It  is  proportioned  with  fine  plain- 
ness; its  height  is  thirty-four  inches,  its  width  thirty- 
five,  while  the  depth  is  seventeen;  the  base  shows  the 
Hepplewhite  French  foot,  and  the  drawer  has  two 
fine  oval  brasses.  I  suppose  this  drawer  held  the 
sheets  and  pillowcases,  while  the  upper  chest,  which 


80       THE   NEXT-TO-NOTHING   HOUSE 

has  a  lifting  lid  and  simulates  two  drawers,  was 
intended  for  the  blankets.  It  is  a  desirable  chattel, 
and  most  useful,  since  it  supplements  the  storage- 
space  of  the  three  cupboards  below  the  built-in 
bookcases. 

Until  I  worked  seriously  with  my  "parlour  bed- 
room," I  had  no  idea  that  such  a  small  chamber 
could  be  made  at  once  so  agreeable  and  so  practical. 
There  are  crimsons  enough  to  warm  it  in  winter,  and 
blues  enough  to  make  it  tolerable  in  summer,  when, 
if  the  sun  glares  too  hot  because  it  faces  full  south,  I 
can  close  the  heavy,  old-fashioned,  green  shutters; 
though,  I  admit,  it  does  seem  a  shame  ever  to  shut 
out  the  tall,  inquisitive  hollyhocks  and  the  briary 
bush  that  smells  so  sweet.  Still,  never  can  the  sense 
of  color  and  life  be  utterly  banished,  no  matter  what 
you  do.  It  is  a  sufficiently  attractive  room  when 
sunlight  splashes  the  floor,  and  all  outdoors  calls 
you;  but  behind  a  curtain  of  cold  rain,  in  the  pleas- 
ant company  of  old,  rested,  restful  furniture,  with  the 
forever  fresh  adventure  of  books  and  reading,  shut 

in,  safe,  and  sheltered,  what  more  could  O want? 

—  unless  it  were  a  Morris  chair! 


"       " 


••t-tt        0    »   ft       III 


Minimi    u  V"b     »  •  : 


iS»-«:  fl   » V       H '  •  i*        U   •   8 

H    •    H        »•'»'•       . 


The  black-painted  linen-chest  and  historical  "drawn-in"  rug. 


IV 
THE  OLD  FARM  KITCHEN 

I  AM  not  the  spider,  and  you  are  not  the  fly;  nor 
am  I  spinning  you  a  web  of  deceit;  but,  since  I  have 
so  "many  curious  things  to  show  you  when  you're 
there,"  won't  you  walk  into  our  dining-room  —  the 
"dining-parlour,"  as  I  like  to  think  my  beloved  Jane 
Austen  would  have  called  it.  In  reality,  it  is  nothing 
half  so  grand;  it  probably  was  the  old  farm  kitchen; 
a  very  large  room  for  my  little  cottage,  because,  at 
its  greatest  length,  it  measures  twenty-six  feet,  and 
is  quite  fourteen  wide.  In  those  late-eighteenth- 
century  days,  when  Democracy  was  something  more 
than  a  mere  name,  no  doubt  farmer  and  farm  hands 
alike  ate  in  this  long,  low-ceilinged  room.  The  fire- 
place has  the  old  brick  ovens  at  one  end;  brown  bread, 
beans,  and  pies  were  baked  there;  and,  as  far  as  pos- 
sible, we  have  restored  its  honest,  useful  appearance 
of  domesticity  as  1790  knew  it. 

The  house  was  full  of  problems  when  we  took  it. 
As  I  said,  it  was  badly  placed  —  so  built  that  it  gets 
hardly  any  sun.  Perhaps,  in  the  free  days  when  it 
was  first  planned,  when  it  stood  in  the  centre  of  wide 
fields,  without  shadowing  trees  or  encroaching  build- 
ings, its  aspect  was  different.  Now,  although  the 
exposure  of  the  dining-room  is  southwest,  it  is  any- 
thing but  overlight.  Naturally  I  experimented 


84       THE  NEXT-TO-NOTHING  HOUSE 

with  wall-papers  —  I  knew,  oh,  so  bitterly  little, 
then!  First  a  dense  crimson  cartridge-paper,  be- 
cause I  wanted  something  "cheerful."  That  was  an 
abomination!  It  not  only  swallowed  up  the  light, 
but,  by  the  relentless  law  of  color,  made  the  room 
seem  smaller.  My  next  venture  was  a  flowered 
paper  in  a  tapestry  effect;  better,  but  far  too  modern 
in  design.  Now,  by  a  combination  of  great  luck  and 
the  advice  of  my  Candid  Friend,  I  have  found  just 
the  right  background :  a  soft  grayish-brown,  —  per- 
haps there  is  the  merest  mist  of  green  in  it,  —  not 
solid  in  surface,  but  faintly  dappled  so  that  there  is 
the  constant  play  of  light  and  shade  on  it.  Its  color 
relation  to  my  parlour  is  both  fortunate  and  intended; 
one  room  leads  directly  into  the  other,  and  the  gray 
in  each  paper  binds  them  together.  My  curtains  are 
fashioned  from  the  same  joyous  "Kershaw"  chintz 
that  hangs  in  my  hall,  and  three  windows  are  made 
gay  with  its  blossoms.  It  matches  my  old-fashioned 
garden  outside;  and,  since  it  holds  the  bright  hues  of 
my  faience,  the  dulled  gold  of  my  stencil  chairs,  and 
the  gray-green  of  the  wall-paper,  it  unites  harmoni- 
ously the  color-feeling  of  the  whole  room. 

The  woodwork  is  painted  a  glossy  ivory,  a  trifle 
deeper  in  tone  than  my  other  room ;  and  we  now  have 
the  grandeur  of  a  hardwood  floor.  It  used  to  be 
soft  pine:  wide  boards  that  splintered  incessantly, 
and  joggled  if  you  stepped  on  them  too  hard;  long- 
cracked  things  that  permitted  wavering  lantern- 


THE  OLD  FARM  KITCHEN  87 

streaks  to  flicker  up  as  O plodded  his  weary  way 

to  the  furnace;  for  that  was  in  the  High  and  Far-Off 
Times,  O  Best-Beloved  Collectors,  when  we  lived 
with  the  light  that  our  patient  ancestors  knew  — 
probably  the  reason  why  to-day  we  have  so  many 
candlesticks.  But  at  present  the  floor  is  a  service- 
able one,  dulled  to  a  darkish-brown  with  coats  of  oil 
and  constant  rubbing;  and  because  of  this  treatment 
it  tones  in  with  the  room  as  a  light,  over  varnished 
surface  never  could.  And  I  have  four  medium- 
sized  rugs:  three  old  "drawn-in,"  one  modern  braided 
—  but  these  I  want  to  tell  you  about  in  detail  later 
on;  as  yet,  it  suffices  to  say  that  they  complete  my 
room  as  a  larger  central  rug  never  could  do,  for  that 
would  lack  the  aspect  of  antiquity. 

And  now  that  I  have  shown  you  my  background, 
I  want  to  tell  you  about  my  furniture,  its  period  and 
arrangement.  I  am  flattering  myself  that  you  are 
standing  beside  me,  listening  to  me  as  I  talk,  and  not 
at  all  bored.  We  have  just  walked  in  from  the  study, 
and  directly  we  are  in  front  of  a  small  Empire  work- 
table,  a  wedding-gift,  plain  but  quite  charming.  It 
is  a  type  frequently  met  with  through  New  England : 
a  pedestal,  two  leaves  that  let  down,  two  drawers 
with  brass  knobs  —  the  upper  one  fitted  for  a  discreet 
correspondence,  with  its  little  square  of  green  felt, 
and  tiny  cubby-holes  for  ink  and  wafers ;  and  a  longer 
one,  for  pens,  I  suppose. 

Even  disregarding  its  older  purpose,  such  a  table 


88        THE   NEXT-TO-NOTHING   HOUSE 

is  extremely  useful  to-day;  the  small  drawers  hold 
tea-napkins  most  agreeably,  while  the  leaves,  out- 
spread, are  just  the  size  for  a  stencil  tray  laden  with 
pink  lustre  or  gilt-banded  china.  At  present  its 
employment  in  my  menage  is  a  double  one:  the 
drawers  are  full  of  old  linen,  but  the  table-top  sup- 
ports my  pottery  lamp,  wrhich  I  like  so  well  that  I 
hope  you  will  pay  me  the  compliment  of  imitation  by 
copying  it.  The  base  is  a  jar  of  old  Portland  ware, 
twelve  inches  high  perhaps,  gracefully  shaped  and 
with  a  beautiful  glaze  —  brown,  with  a  little  green 
cast  and  splashes  of  yellow  that  give  it  a  fine  vitality. 
I  bought  it  at  a  New  Hampshire  auction  for  half  a 
dollar,  because  it  was  so  good-looking;  but  it  was  not 
until  I  got  it  home  that  I  saw  how  it  would  become 
my  dining-room.  Having  it  wired  for  electricity  was 
fairly  expensive,  —  about  eight  dollars  if  I  remember 
rightly,  —  and  the  shade  was  nine  more;  for,  to  get 
the  results  I  wanted,  I  had  to  have  precisely  the  right 
fabric  and  color.  In  the  daytime,  the  feeling  of  the 
lamp  is  a  yellow-brown,  so  for  the  outside  I  bought 
luminous  Tanjore  silk,  which  precisely  expressed  the 
color-value.  But  for  the  lining,  since  the  lamp  was 
to  glow  with  a  saffron  splendor  at  night,  and  hold  the 
dining-room  and  parlour  together,  I  chose  the  same 
material,  but  in  an  orange  that  gave  a  hint  of  rose. 
The  combination  is  all  I  had  dreamed  of,  and  the 
flame-tinted  bulbs  that  light  it  serve  to  increase  its 
luminous  radiance.  Perhaps  you  think  that  such  a 


THE  OLD  FARM  KITCHEN  89 

lamp  is  extravagant  for  a  Next-to-Nothing  House  to 
own,  and,  if  you  do,  my  answer  is  a  thoroughly 
Yankee  one:  another  question.  "Did  you  ever  try 
to  buy  a  really  beautiful  and  suitable  lamp  at  a  special 
shop,  or  even  at  a  good  department  store?  And  if 
you  bought  it,  how  much  did  you  pay?  "  Moreover, 
always  remember  this:  that  restful,  fine,  and  appro- 
priate lighting  is  never  a  thing  for  narrow  economy. 
I  like  my  lamp  placed  as  it  is,  because  it  is  so 
pleasant  to  sit  by  the  hearth  and  read;  and  if  it  were 
not  just  there,  I  could  n't,  for  the  fireplace  has  been 
built  in  a  peculiar  fashion,  quite  at  the  end  of  the 
room.  Whenever  I  look  at  ours,  I  like  to  remember 
what  Lord  Bacon  wrote,  that  "  there  is  no  exceeding 
beauty  without  some  strangeness  in  the  proportions." 
Logically,  my  " friendly  fireplace,"  as  G—  -  calls  it, 
ought  to  be  in  the  centre  of  the  room;  but  in  reality 
it 's  infinitely  more  effective  where  it  is.  The  shelf 
is  high  and  white  and  narrow,  and  the  blue  Stafford- 
shire plates  above  it  are  hung  there  for  precisely  the 
same  reason  that  "Old  Hickory's"  dish  decorates  the 
study  —  because  the  Dispensers  of  my  Destiny 
would  n't  let  me  tear  down  the  old  stove-holes. 
Well,  they  serve  another  purpose,  too:  they  echo 
the  color  of  the  china  ranged  on  my  mantel.  First, 
there  's  my  old  Nankin  teapot;  next,  a  "sugar-box" 
(Stevenson,  I  think),  so  charmingly  pastoral  in 
design,  —  a  shepherd  with  a  lute  is  tending  his  flock, 
—  that  I  call  it  Theocritus  in  blue,  and  love  it  more 


90       THE  NEXT-TO-NOTHING  HOUSE 

every  time  I  look  at  it.  And  then  comes  a  small 
Wedgwood  sugar-bowl,  a  gift  from  an  old  Long 
Island  house,  and,  under  the  clock,  a  Shepherd  cup; 
then,  the  companion  Wedgwood  teapot,  the  same 
grapevine  pattern,  and  an  indigo-hued  Enoch  Wood 
bowl.  But  none  of  them  compare  with  the  Bristol 
piece  at  the  end  of  the  mantel-shelf;  the  dreaming 
potter  who  made  that  so  long  ago  must  have  remem- 
bered all  the  loveliest  blue  things  in  the  world  he 
knew :  larkspurs  and  the  curve  of  a  hot  June  sky  above 
them,  and  the  distant  harbor,  where  all  the  Spanish 
ships  came  in. 

But,  after  all,  it  is  my  amber  glass  candlesticks 
that  are  my  particular  jewels.  They  are  dolphins, 
which  obligingly  balance  the  sockets  upon  curved 
tails;  their  height  is  a  full  ten  inches,  and  their  modest 
worth  of  six  years  ago  has  increased  by  leaps  and 
bounds,  until  the  last  New  York  price  that  I  heard 
quoted  was  sixty-five  dollars.  Frankly,  they  cost  me 
just  four  and  a  half,  and  are  one  of  the  best  argu- 
ments I  know  for  buying  before  a  collecting  fashion 
becomes  general.  They  are,  however,  very  attractive, 
and  their  quaint  charm  and  rarity,  plus  the  magic 
name  of  Sandwich,  —  for  that  is  where  they  were 
made  in  the  early  nineteenth  century,  —  has  raised 
their  value  out  of  all  probability. 

The  mantel-clock  is  an  heirloom,  made  at  Bristol, 
Connecticut,  by  E.  &  G.  W.  Bartholomew.  I  wish 
the  photograph  showed  even  the  least  details  more 


The  "friendly  fireplace,"  showing  the  Empire  clock  and  blue  china  on  the 
shelf;  the  ovens  and  old  cooking-utensils  below. 


THE  OLD  FARM  KITCHEN  93 

perfectly,  for  it  is  the  best  clock  of  the  type  that  I 
know  —  a  mingling  of  two  styles  of  Empire  decora- 
tion: carving  and  stenciling.  At  the  top  are  carved 
pineapples,  symbols  of  hospitality;  the  decoration  in 
between  is  stenciled  in  gold,  dulled  by  time,  but  very- 
lovely;  the  design,  a  heaped  basket  of  fruit.  The 
pillars  are  gold-stenciled,  too,  but  with  a  formalized 
acanthus-leaf  motif,  and  the  feet  are  the  carved  lion's 
claws.  The  dial  is  charming:  white  with  delicate 
gold  spandrels  and  figures;  and  the  picture  below 
shows  a  dignified  Georgian  house  set  on  the  banks 
of  a  placid  stream;  it  always  reminds  me  of  one  of 
those  stately  James  River  mansions.  Altogether  it 
is  such  a  clock  as  one  prays  for  but  seldom  gets. 

You  will  notice  that  I  have  a  number  of  old  skim- 
mers and  ladles,  —  brass,  copper,  and  pewter,  — 
hanging  there;  a  warming  pan,  a  waffle  iron  (that 's 
unusual),  a  corn  popper,  and  a  variety  of  pots  and 
pans  and  griddles.  (I  have  even  an  ancient  boot- 
jack, which  the  children  find  an  immense  help  in 
taking  off  rubber  boots.)  All  these  oddments  I 
picked  up  at  various  times  and  places  through  the 
countryside,  for  mere  snatches  of  songs,  really  noth- 
ing at  all.  The  kettle  is  my  wood-box  in  winter,  and 
in  summer  I  fill  it  with  yellow  flowers,  the  largess 
of  my  old-time  garden,  for  the  color-feeling  of  this 
room  is  gold,  as  that  of  my  parlour  is  rose.  As  for 
my  firedogs,  they  're  frankly  iron,  and  crude;  made, 
I  imagine,  by  some  village  blacksmith.  I  got  two 


94       THE  NEXT-TO-NOTHING  HOUSE 

pairs  at  an  auction  for  something  under  three  dollars, 
and,  while  they  are  not  so  beautiful  as  brass,  they 
are  infinitely  less  trouble,  and  quite  as  appropriate 
for  an  eighteenth-century  cottage.  Sometimes  —  in 
heavy  winter  weather  —  I  use  both  pairs.  Do  you 
think  me  absurd  and  whimsical?  I  assure  you  I  'm 
not.  You  see,  I  very  much  dislike  ugly  and  unsuit- 
able fire-screens,  and  the  four  andirons  are  actually 
four  alert  watchdogs  for  blazing  rolling  logs,  and 
really  form  an  excellent  fire-protection. 

All  this  time  you  have  been  standing  on  one  of  my 
"  drawn-in"  rugs,  one  of  my  bargains,  too,  for  I  bought 
it  from  a  small  dealer  who  was  eloquent  in  his  per- 
suasive arguments  not  to  buy  "that  old  thing,"  but 
to  take  instead  a  hideous,  staring  rug,  with  a  design 
of  sportive  green  and  red  kittens  romping  with  a  ball 
against  a  black  background.  Well,  that  was  ten 
dollars  and  my  rug  was  three;  but  had  the  prices 
been  reversed,  my  choice  would  have  remained  the 
same,  my  color-sense  (or  perhaps  the  lack  of  it)  being 
a  North  Country  wonder  and  despair.  When  I  got 
it  home,  I  realized  what  a  prize  I  had  found:  the 
pattern  is  lovely  and  personal,  by  which  I  mean  that 
the  woman  who  made  it  went  to  her  own  mind  for 
inspiration,  instead  of  working  one  of  those  stereo- 
typed "  bough  ten"  designs,  which  so  many  of  them 
unfortunately  use.  The  color  is  brown  for  the  most 
part,  with  a  cream  centre  adorned  with  formal  red 
roses  and  bluebell  sprays;  and  roses  with  gray-green 


THE  OLD  FARM  KITCHEN  95 

leaves  ornament  the  corners.  The  work  is  very  fine 
and  close-clipped,  and  the  foundation  is  not  burlap 
but  old  homespun  linen  —  a  very  rare  happening, 
indeed,  and  an  indication  of  decided  age. 

As  you  stand  by  my  fireplace  and  glance  around, 
you  will  see  that  my  furniture  is  of  one  period  and 
type  —  an  essential  of  a  dining-room,  to  my  way  of 
thinking.  It  is  plain  Empire;  not  so  gracefully 
beautiful  as  Hepplewhite  or  Sheraton,  but  dignified, 
simple,  and  suited  to  my  "  middling  house."  It  is, 
also,  much  less  expensive  than  either  of  the  other 
styles.  The  necessary  things  —  by  which  I  mean 
chairs,  table,  sideboard,  and  secretary  —  cost  just  a 
hundred  and  forty-one  dollars.  When  you  add  my 
curtains,  the  price  runs  up  to  nineteen  dollars  and 
eighty  cents  more;  while  everything  together  —  and 
this  includes  my  Staffordshire  china,  my  pressed- 
glass  candlesticks,  my  Stiegel  flip-mug,  my  pewter, 
brass,  and  copper,  my  rugs  and  wheel- tray  and 
lamps  —  amounts  to  two  hundred  and  fifty  dollars 
and  eight  cents.  Often  you  pay  more  than  that  for 
a  wretched  reproduction,  a  period  suite,  "  William 
and  Mary  in  the  popular  Jacobean  finish." 

That  card-table  by  the  door  is  another  heirloom; 
a  piece,  too,  of  which  I  can  say  again  that  it  is  one  of 
the  finest  of  the  type  I  have  ever  seen.  Most  of  these 
lyre-based  tables  —  I  do  not  include  Phyfe's  designs 
in  this  statement,  for  they  are  in  a  class  by  them- 
selves —  are  either  overtrimmed  and  ornately  ugly, 


96       THE  NEXT-TO-NOTHING  HOUSE 

or  underdecorated  and  stingy  in  proportion.  This, 
with  its  tiny  carved  rosettes  and  really  graceful  base, 
is  as  good-looking  as  such  a  table  well  can  be.  When 
I  first  saw  it,  it  was  standing  isolated  from  the  mid- 
Vic  torianness  of  the  rest  of  the  room,  though  draped 
disguisingly  into  respectability  by  some  sort  of  tap- 
estry cover,  and  was  used  as  a  telephone  table.  I 
rescued  and  repolished  it,  and  my  reward  was  imme- 
diate. The  "fire"  in  the  mahogany  is  wonderful  — 
all  life  and  tone  and  warmth.  No  other  period  shows 
off  the  actual  value  of  the  wood  itself  so  well  as 
Empire  does. 

The  candlesticks  and  tray,  all  are  gifts;  I  cannot 
itemize  them  in  my  expenses.  The  teapot  and  cup 
I  picked  up  at  a  village  sale  for  a  dollar  and  a  half. 
They  are  old  Staffordshire,  the  decoration  the  love- 
liest thing,  soft  roses  on  a  deep-cream  ground;  I  felt 
proud  and  happy  when  lately  I  tried  to  buy  a  tiny 
creamer  of  the  same  pattern,  not  half  so  good,  and 
found  that  it  cost  nearly  five  times  as  much.  The 
platter  above  is  pewter,  an  auction  trophy  which  I 
bore  away  for  a  dollar  and  twenty  cents,  and  it  hangs 
from  an  old  hand-wrought  nail  that  was  taken  from 
the  house  where  the  plans  for  the  "Boston  Tea  Party  " 
were  made.  (I  think  it  must  have  been  the  meeting- 
place  of  the  South  End  Caucus,  for,  of  course,  the 
"  North  Enders  "  met  at  Paul  Revere's  beloved  Green 
Dragon  Inn.)  Hanging  high  on  the  wall  over  my 
platter  are  my  French  faience  plates — Strassbourg- 


THE  OLD  FARM  KITCHEN  99 

ware,  dating  back  to  the  late  eighteenth  century; 
perhaps  they  were  being  made  in  that  ancient  city 
when  the  fiery  young  lieutenant,  Rouget  de  1'Isle, 
was  writing  the  triumphant  " Marseillaise."  The 
potteries  in  which  my  plates  were  fashioned  were 
burned  to  the  ground  in  1830,  but  in  the  Luneville 
china  of  to-day  you  can  still  trace  a  family  resem- 
blance of  motif  and  feeling.  I  am  perfectly  aware 
that  it  is  anathema  to  certain  decorators  to  think 
of  using  plates  in  any  scheme  of  room-furnishing.  I 
know  this  rule,  and,  knowing  it,  I  am  perfectly  jus- 
tified in  breaking  it.  The  side  wall  of  my  dining- 
room  is  blank  and  dark  and  rather  uninteresting; 
these  plates,  in  their  happy,  nai've  colors,  are  the 
cheerfulest  things  you  can  imagine,  and  they  bring 
the  sensation  of  warmth  so  necessary  in  an  under- 
lighted  interior.  These,  too,  were  gifts;  I  am  fortu- 
nate in  my  friends. 

On  either  side  of  my  table  are  stenciled  chairs;  a 
pure  Empire  type  developed  about  1815.  I  have 
six  of  them.  I  bought  them  way,  way  up  in  a  lit- 
tle hill-village,  from  the  nicest  old  farmer  in  New 
Hampshire.  They  were  in  perfect  condition;  cane 
seats  and  stenciling  looking  just  as  well  as  they  did 
a  hundred  years  ago,  with  the  added  benison  of  gen- 
tle Time — Time  who  to  me  is  n't  a  brusque,  white- 
bearded  man,  with  hourglass  and  terrifying  scythe, 
but  a  mild  and  elderly  lady,  who  brushes  away  the 
ugly  newness  from  our  possessions,  who  fades  gaudy 


100      THE  NEXT-TO-NOTHTNG  HOUSE 

colors,  and  folds  memories  away  in  rose-leaves  and 
lavender  and  lays  them  in  prim  old  drawers.  I  don't 
know  whether  this  was  the  farmer's  philosophy  or 
not.  When  I  asked  him  how  he  had  ever  been  able 
to  keep  them  so  unspoiled,  he  answered,  with  the 
drollest  twinkle  in  his  eye,  "Well,  ye  see,  up  here  in 
the  hills  we  's  so  busy  hustlin'  round  for  a  livin'  that 
we  don't  scurcely  git  a  chance  to  set  down."  He  was 
delighted  to  sell  them  at  a  dollar  apiece;  it  was  his 
own  price,  and,  lest  you  think  me  a  Shylock,  I  want 
to  say  at  once  that  these  chairs  were  up  in  the  attic, 
neglected,  and  his  parlour  was  filled  to  overflowing 
with  plump,  green-upholstered,  exuberant  mahogany. 

In  the  corner  is  my  sideboard  —  Empire  of  the 
plainest  type,  but  dignified  and  ample.  The  han- 
dles —  old  pressed  glass  —  and  the  brass  escutcheons 
are  the  original  ones,  and  the  mahogany  veneering, 
particularly  that  on  the  doors,  is  beautifully  toned. 
Under  the  drawers  there  is  a  quaint  little  butler's 
slide,  which  pulls  out  when  you  tug  at  a  small  brass 
knob;  and  at  each  end  are  panels  made  of  rich,  dark 
curly  maple,  an  interesting  and  thoroughly  New 
England  combination  of  woods.  I  paid  sixty-five 
dollars  for  it,  when  I  bought  it  some  years  ago 
from  our  Favorite  Dealer,  and  this  price  included 
its  complete  renovation. 

The  top  looks  much  better  than  it  did  my  first 
experimental  year.  Because  a  "beginning  collector" 
finds  it  hard  not  to  put  everything  pretty  or  odd 


The  rescued  Empire  table  and  stencil  chairs. 

ware  plates. 


Above  my  Strassbourg- 


THE   OLD   FARM   KITCHEN  103 

she  has  out  for  admiring  eyes  to  see:  brass,  pewter, 
silver,  stencil,  and  glass  —  she  wants  to  show  it  all. 
" To-morrow  is  also  another  day"  is  not  a  favorite 
maxim  of  hers,  nor  has  she  a  sense  of  Japanese 
restraint.  It  took  me  months  before  I  realized  how 
much  better  my  sideboard  looked  with  very  little 
on  it;  that  glass  and  pewter  or  silver  became  it,  but 
never  the  deeper  tones  of  stencil  and  brass.  Now  it 
bears  the  burden  of  my  Lafayette  decanter,  flanked 
by  two  pressed-glass  candlesticks,  my  Stiegel  flip- 
glass,  —  ah,  that's  a  treasure!  —  and  a  graceful 
Victorian  sugar-bowl  of  the  bellflower  pattern.  This 
is  just  the  glass;  but,  besides,  there  are  two  discreet 
pewter  teapots,  a  little  English  pepper-shaker,  three 
idle  dram-glasses  on  their  eighteenth-century  tray, 
and  a  plain  substantial  hundred-year-old  silver  mug. 
It  sounds  like  a  lot,  I  know;  but,  oh,  you  should  have 
viewed  it  in  the  days  of  my  unrestrained  youth! 

Can  you  see  the  old  "drawn-in"  rug  that  lies  in 
front  of  my  sideboard?  If  I  had  planned  its  size,  it 
could  n't  be  more  accurate.  This  is  one  of  my  great 
and  fairly  recent  "finds"  —  the  reward,  really,  of 
taking  a  long,  muddy,  exhausting  tramp  with  some 
camp  girls,  after  maple  sugar.  I  think  the  old 
woman  we  visited  must  have  been  a  domestic  artist, 
for  she  made  excellent  sugar  and  superexcellent  rugs. 
This  to  her  was  an  old  carpet  that  she  had  hooked 
thirty  or  forty  years  before,  and  the  central  design 
was  in  memory  of  her  former  home  —  an  attempt 


104      THE   NEXT-TO-NOTHING   HOUSE 

at  Late  Georgian  architecture,  I  am  sure,  and  cer- 
tainly an  effort  which  increased  the  rug's  value,  for 
landscape  and  house-designs  rank  next  to  histori- 
cal patterns.  The  coral -and-gray  border,  however, 
reveals  a  much  earlier  motif,  and  the  work  is  even 
and  fine,  more  durable  since  it  is  not  clipped.  Of 
course,  I  am  careful  with  these  antiquated  rugs;  I 
mend  them  solicitously  as -soon  as  there  is  the  least 
sign  of  wear;  I  prefer  proper  brushing  to  vacuum- 
cleaning,  since  sometimes  this  method  catches  loose 
strands,  and  I  never  shake  them,  for  that  is  apt  to 
snap  the  worn  fibres  of  the  burlap.  The  other  two 
rugs  lie  in  front  of  the  kitchen-door  and  the  radiator; 
but  as  they  are  agreeable  blendings  of  hues  rather 
than  definite  patterns,  they  hardly  merit  detailed 
description. 

My  dining-table  is  simple,  one  of  those  drop-leaf 
cherry  tables  so  common  in  the  early  nineteenth 
century;  square,  with  slightly  rounded  corners,  and 
very  serviceable.  It  is  not  my  ideal  of  what  a  dining- 
table  should  be,  —  it  cost  just  ten  dollars,  —  but  I 
know  where  there  is  one:  six-legged,  rope-carved,  and 
charming.  Some  day  I  hope  to  have  it,  and  then 
I  '11  be  obliged  to  tell  you  that  my  dining-room  is 
forty  dollars  more  expensive  than  it  was.  That 's 
another  joy  of  collecting;  always  the  distant  hori- 
zon of  anticipation;  forever  one  more  block  to  place 
upon  our  House  of  Dreams. 

My  last  piece  of  furniture  is  my  secretary.     This, 


The   mahogany-and-maple   sideboard   with   its   discreet   adornment   of 
glass  and  pewter. 


THE  OLD  FARM  KITCHEN  107 

also,  is  plainest  Empire,  made  beautiful  by  the 
dignified  simplicity  of  the  line  and  the  richness  of 
the  mahogany.  The  handles  and  escutcheons  are 
all  old,  cast  from  that  delightful  brass  which  polishes 
to  such  a  clear  pallor.  (May  I  recommend  lemon 
and  salt  vigorously  applied,  as  an  excellent  remover 
of  age-stains?)  Years  ago  this  secretary  was  bought 
on  the  common  of  a  near-by  village,  for  five  dollars, 
and  next  was  '  'swapped  off  "  for  a  roll-top  desk.  Then 
the  owner  sold  it  to  me  for  forty-five  dollars,  and, 
even  at  that  advance,  I  'm  sure  I  got  a  bargain.  Now 
the  cabinet  above  holds,  not  books,  but  my  collec- 
tion of  old  pressed  glass  against  a  background  of 
gay  china. 

I  hope  you  like  my  dining-room?  I  have  tried  so 
earnestly  to  make  you  see  it  —  this  long,  low,  eight- 
eenth-century farm  kitchen  of  mine;  furnished  in  a 
little  later  period,  but  always  in  honest  faience  feel- 
ing, not  a  single  bit  of  imitation  porcelain  about  it. 
Have  you  counted  the  doors?  Seven  of  them,  and 
there  used  to  be  nine,  but  two  were  ruthlessly  done 
away  with.  Still,  there  are  enough  to  sigh  suddenly 
open  on  lonely  nights,  as  if  some  gentle  ghost  had 
just  flitted  through.  And  have  you  observed  my  sta- 
ble, that  little  embrasure  between  the  sideboard  and 
the  closet?  That's  where  my  wheeled- tray  lives;  my 
useful  wheeled-tray  which  bears  the  names  of  two 
famous  steeds,  for  it  is  Rosinante  when,  gaily  capa- 
risoned, it  carries  my  Queensware  tea-set  into  the 


108     THE   NEXT-TO-NOTHING  HOUSE 

parlour,  but  Dapple  when  it  disappears  through  the 
kitchen-door,  laden  with  the  discarded  dishes.  You 
see,  I  want  you  to  notice  all  our  improvements.  I 
know  that  the  whole  effect  must  be  pleasant;  so 
many  people  have  used  that  very  word  to  me.  And 
I  have  been  told  that  my  fireplace  is  the  "most 
delightful  one  in  the  world  to  sit  and  talk  by."  I 
like  to  believe  it  is  true,  because  I  have  been  able, 
even  with  my  simple  things,  and  only  a  little  money, 
to  combine  the  harmonies  of  rest  and  warmth  and 
color.  After  all,  it  is  the  "presence"  of  a  room  that 
is  the  final  thing,  that  really  counts. 


The  Empire  secretary  where  my  historical  glass  lives. 


MY  KITCHEN 

IF  you  had  sat  with  me  in  my  kitchen  this  after- 
noon, my  warm  yellow-brown  kitchen  with  its  gay 
braided  rugs  and  its  gayer  red  geraniums;  sat  there 
and  rocked  in  the  stenciled  rocker,  while  my  kettle 
hummed  on  the  stove  and,  outside,  the  snow  sifted 
and  tinkled  against  the  windowpanes  and  whitened 
all  the  world  —  well,  I  am  sure  you  would  have  loved 
it  as  much  as  I  do. 

Now,  I  must  confess  frankly  that  I  do  not  care  for 
a  laboratory-like  kitchen,  a  sterilized-looking  place, 
though  at  first  I  did  begin  with  aspirations  and  a 
boudoir  decoration,  all  blue  and  white.  Oh,  my  inex- 
perience! But  I  soon  learned  how  brief  and  transi- 
tory are  all  such  delicate  painted  pleasures ;  how  long 
and  cold  and  frozen  a  winter  here  could  be;  and  how 
warm  and  cheering  I  might  make  my  kitchen  with 
a  brown-and-yellow  livery:  a  yellow  that  had  the 
tone  quality  of  those  old  mixing-bowls ;  a  brown  with 
just  enough  red  to  brighten  it  and  keep  it  from  look- 
ing chocolate-y.  You  see,  I  had  to  create  interest 
in  an  utterly  uninteresting  room. 

My  kitchen  represents  the  new  and  rather  prosaic 
ell  that  took  the  place  of  the  rambling,  picturesque 
sheds  and  outhouses  which  straggled  half  across  the 
dooryard,  and  which  had  crumbled  beyond  any  pos- 


THE  NEXT-TO-NOTHING  HOUSE 

sibility  of  repair.  That  eighteenth-century  kitchen 
was  wide  and  ample,  with  queer  little  nooks  and 
corners;  and  I  should  have  loved  so  to  play  with  it, 
restore  it,  keep  it  in  outward  semblance  what  it  used 
to  be.  My  kitchen  to-day  is  trim  and  compact  (ten 
by  twelve  feet),  with  a  good-sized  pantry  opening 
from  it,  two  windows  (a  third  in  the  pantry),  five 
doors,  and  no  imagination  whatsoever.  That  quality 
it  was  my  task  to  supply,  and  this  is  how  I  did  it. 

Of  course,  my  color-scheme  established  at  once  the 
decorative  truth  that  I  wished  to  present:  a  kitchen 
that  should  be  warm  and  cheerful,  with  a  sense  of 
simple  joys  and  homely  intimacy,  rather  like  a  crock 
of  spice  cookies  or  a  pan  of  hot  gingerbread.  I  had, 
then,  merely  to  elaborate  it,  to  gather  accessories 
that  should  continue  the  feeling,  to  take  creams 
that  deepened  to  yellows,  and  yellows  that  softened 
to  browns,  and  black,  with  little  touches  of  gilt;  to 
make,  in  short,  a  kitchen  that  would  be  pleasant  to 
sit  and  knit  in  while  I  waited  for  my  dinner  to  cook; 
for  the  domestic  pauses  between  maids  grow  longer 
and  longer,  and  it  is  but  wisdom  to  prepare  for  the 
inevitable. 

When  you  come  in  from  the  dining-room  and  shut 
the  door,  I  think  you  will  see  precisely  what  I  mean. 
(By  the  way,  I  'm  rather  proud  of  that  door,  because 
it 's  the  old  one,  made  just  of  two  broad  planks,  one 
fourteen,  the  other  seventeen  inches  wide.  They 
don't  build  doors  like  that  any  more.)  I  wonder 


MY  KITCHEN  115 

what  you  would  notice  first :  my  clock,  or  my  rocker, 
or  my  rugs?  Or  my  red  geraniums  on  the  window- 
ledge,  or  my  cider-mugs,  or  my  old  Tole-ware? 
Let 's  "play"  I  am  taking  you  round  the  room  and 
showing  you. 

There  's  my  big  braided  rug  in  front  of  the  door, 
effective  with  its  wide  and  heavy  strands,  and  its 
blendings  of  yellow  and  red  and  black.  Like  the 
"house-rug"  in  my  dining-room,  if  I  had  designed 
it  and  had  it  made  for  me  I  could  n't  have  achieved 
anything  more  adapted  to  the  place  where  it  now 
lies.  Indeed,  I  doubt  if  I  could  have  thought  out  its 
heavy  suitability  —  the  outside  braided,  the  inner 
strip  closely  knitted.  And  I  bought  it  for  seventy- 
five  cents,  at  a  rainy-day  auction  in  the  hills  —  an 
auction  where  there  was  nothing,  apparently,  but 
iron  beds  and  Victorian  maple  bureaus,  until  I  found 
this  cheerful  rug  crumpled  up  and  bundled  away  in 
one  corner.  My  geraniums  catch  the  twinkle  of  red, 
and  my  straight-hanging  curtains  (thank  goodness, 
my  windows,  though  not  old,  are  small-paned !)  take 
the  yellow  of  the  rug  and  the  green  of  the  geranium 
leaves,  and  weave  them  into  a  fabric  that  Caldecott 
himself  might  have  used  in  his  quaint  and  charming 
drawings.  Yet  the  material  was  not  expensive 
(twenty-five  cents  a  yard),  for  I  bought  it  ages  ago, 
and  I  could  n't  have  used  more  than  nine  and  a  half 
yards. 

Then  there  's  my  rocker:  cane-seated,  cane-backed, 


116     THE  NEXT-TO-NOTHING  HOUSE 

the  most  comfortable  chair  in  the  world.  This  last 
statement  I  am  sure  of,  because  the  family,  who  of- 
ten revile  me  for  my  straight,  uncompromising,  old- 
fashioned  chairs,  all  fight  to  sit  in  this  one.  The 
stencil  for  the  top  is  full  of  color  and  delightfully 
unusual;  the  frame  of  the  seat  and  the  front  stretcher 
are  patterned  with  a  mellow  design,  of  a  dim  goldy- 
green,  for  the  most  part,  though  the  top  has  touches 
of  crimson,  and,  when  the  light  catches  it  just  right, 
a  lustrous  underbloom  which  reminds  you  of  old 
lacquer.  I  got  it  for  three  dollars  and  a  half  at  an 
auction,  the  most  rural  auction  I  ever  attended,  and, 
because  of  that  nai've  simplicity,  one  of  the  most 
interesting  gatherings  I  remember  seeing. 

There  were  other  good  things  that  went  for  little 
or  nothing,  too :  old  pressed  glass  and  china  — •  one 
farmer  remarking  scornfully  that  he  would  n't  give 
a  cow's  tail  for  all  the  old  "crockery"  he  saw  there; 
a  lovely  astral  lamp,  more  chairs,  a  few  drawn-in 
rugs,  and  one  or  two  interesting  chests.  And  I  got 
a  stunning  black-and-gold  bas-relief  mirror  —  one  of 
the  handsomest  of  this  type  that  I  have  seen  —  for 

eleven  dollars  and  a  half.     F bought  another 

glass  for  five  dollars,  a  great  big  one  with  a  wide 
frame  of  that  beautifully  veneered  mahogany  they 

used  so  much  in  the  early  nineteenth  century;  R 

staggered  under  a  topping  load  of  Vermont  imprints 
and  old  lanterns;  and  we  all  felt  that  we  had  done 
very  well. 


The  stenciled  rocker  and  my  shelves  of  yellow  pottery 


MY  KITCHEN  119 

My  table  is  a  little  younger  than  my  chair  (I 
should  date  that  about  1830)  and  is  very  Victorian 
—  brown  walnut,  with  an  elaborate  curlicue-ing  base 
and  a  round  top  that  is  scalloped  like  a  cooky.  It 
looks  very  well  uncovered;  it  appears  to  even  better 
advantage  draped  with  a  red-and-white  cloth  that 
makes  you  think  of  home  and  mother.  This  "goes" 
excellently  with  my  color-scheme,  for  the  scarlet 
echoes  the  red  in  my  braided  rug,  the  hue  of  my 
geranium  blossoms;  and  yet  it  is  the  spiritual  quality 
that  I  prize  more,  the  mental  note  that  it  gives  —  a 
value  too  often  overlooked  in  decoration.  It  was 
seventy-nine  cents  a  yard,  and  I  bought  two  yards 
of  it  in  a  little  Vermont  "corner  grocery,"  which  is, 
in  reality,  a  great  department  store  in  miniature:  a 
place  where  you  get  guns  and  crackers  and  veils  and 
fresh  eggs  and  taffeta  ribbons  and  cowbells  and 
prints  and  saucepans  and  neckties  and  molasses  — 
everything!  All  in  the  tiniest  compass !  And  as  the 
shop  lies  just  across  the  river  from  my  house,  I  felt 
that  it  was  most  appropriate. 

Don't  think  for  a  minute,  however,  that  this  red 
arrangement  discounts  kitchen  usefulness,  either;  it 
does  n't,  for  underneath  is  a  covering  of  harmonizing 
oilcloth,  so  that  the  table  may  be  used  for  culinary 
purposes,  or  to  sit  at  and  sip  a  pleasant  cup  of  tea. 
Spaced  above  the  table  are  the  shelves  holding  my 
cider-mugs,  a  generous  cider-jug,  and  a  capacious 
faience  bean-pot  brought  from  Scotland.  All  these 


120      THE   NEXT-TO-NOTHING  HOUSE 

I  bought  here  and  there  at  different  places  in  north- 
ern New  England,  and  in  reckoning  up  their  cost  I 
find  that  I  got  the  entire  lot  for  something  under 
three  dollars. 

Take  my  advice  and  collect  cider-mugs.  As  yet 
they  are  easy  to  find,  they  cost  very  little,  and  they 
are  jolly  things  to  serve  even  ginger  ale  in  —  the 
height  of  praise.  Two  of  mine  are  Mocha-ware,  one 
matching  the  pitcher  with  a  broad  band  of  white 
clouded  with  blue,  the  other  decorated  with  a  waver- 
ing design  somewhat  like  a  brown-and-yellow  shell. 
The  third,  of  yellow  pottery,  has  bands  of  white 
edged  with  black,  and  the  fourth  (and  prettiest)  is 
stoneware,  a  creamy  gray  with  stripes  of  blue.  As 
for  the  bean-pot,  that  is  a  lovely,  fat,  deep-buff  thing, 
with  fleckings  of  light  brown  and  a  ridged  design  at 
the  bottom.  Why,  the  Tailor  of  Gloucester  might 
have  used  them  all,  and  they  make  me  think  of  the 
nursery  rhyme  that  those  rude  little  mice  sang: — 

And  then  I  bought 
A  pipkin  and  a  popkin, 
A  slipkin  and  a  slopkin, 
All  for  one  farthing. 

As  for  my  "wag-on-the-wall"  clock,  that 's  Calde- 
cott,  too.  His  engaging  " Bye-Baby-Bunting,"  " The 
Frog  Who  Would  a- Wooing  Go,"  and  "Mary  Blaize," 
all  have  illustrations  of  these  talkative  little  com- 
panions that  might  be  ticking  away  on  my  kitchen 


The  "wag-on-the-wall"  clock 


MY  KITCHEN  123 

walls  now.     Mine  came  from  the  Black  Forest;  O 

brought  it  from  Europe  twenty  years  ago;  for  it  is  a 
peasant  type,  which  is  common  on  the  Continent 
and  in  the  British  Isles,  lasting  much  later  than  its 
first  date,  which  was  toward  the  close  of  the  sixteenth 
century.  Then  they  were  called  "  lantern"  or  "  bird- 
cage "  clocks,  so  named  from  the  shape,  much  older, 
of  course,  than  "  grandfather "  clocks.  As  Hayden 
says, "  Long-clock  cases  came  into  being  when  the 
long  or '  royal'  pendulum  required  protection  by  hav- 
ing a  wooden  case."  Mine  is  painted  blue,  a  bright, 
full  blue,  with  scarlet  flower-sprays  in  each  span- 
drel, and  above,  on  the  lunette,  the  picture  of  a  lit- 
tle peasant  girl  whose  costume  definitely  dates  her 
about  a  hundred  years  ago. 

The  braided  rug  that  lies  just  beyond  has  all  my 
colors  in  it:  the  blue  of  the  clock,  the  green  of  the 
geranium  leaves,  the  yellow  of  the  walls,  and  a  faint 
and  faded  red.  This  was  more  expensive  than  my 
first,  for  I  paid  five  dollars  for  it  in  one  of  those  little 
needlecraft  shops  that  are  springing  up  all  over  the 
countryside;  an  excellent  movement,  since  it  means 
that  many  of  the  old  domestic  arts  are,  in  conse- 
quence, being  revived.  But  I  more  than  atoned  for 
this  extravagance  when  I  bought  the  scarlet-and-ecru 
rug  that  you  catch  a  glimpse  of  through  the  pantry 
door,  for  that  I  got  with  four  other  rugs,  at  an  auction, 
for  a  quarter.  Since  this  was  rather  the  best  of  the 
lot,  perhaps  it  could  be  valued  at  all  of  fifteen  cents. 


124      THE   NEXT-TO-NOTHING   HOUSE 

The  pantry  has  other  attractions,  too:  if  your 
tastes  are  modern  you  may  admire  my  porcelain  sink, 
my  kitchen  cabinet  angled  discreetly  away;  if  you 
incline  to  the  antique,  —  there 's  really  no  reason 
why  you  can't  enjoy  both;  I  do,  —  just  glance  at  my 
ample  Shaker  milk-pans  of  brown  pottery,  my  darker 
brown  faience  jars,  my  graceful  sirup-jug  of  blended 
shades,  with  a  charming  little  cluster  of  grapes  at  the 
base  of  the  handle.  Then  there  are  my  little  yellow 
custard-cups,  very  like  the  ones  at  the  Aldrich  House 
at  Portsmouth.  The  "Bad  Boy's"  mother  used  to 
bake  cup-cakes  in  them,  and  I  know  how  she  got 
that  deep,  lovely  surface  color,  almost  mahogany, 
and  so  smooth  and  inviting  to  bite  into.  She  rinsed 
out  the  cups  with  milk  before  each  baking!  Some 
day  let 's  try  this  old  recipe.  Best  of  all,  there  are 
my  Bennington  crocks  and  jugs;  I  need  never  use  one 
of  those  modern,  ugly-shaped,  underglazed  products 
of  commerce,  and  not  beauty,  again;  for  I  have  jugs 
for  cider  and  vinegar  and  molasses  and  maple  sirup, 
and  crocks  for  cookies  and  doughnuts  and  fruit  cake. 
And  as  my  circumstances  are  very  much  those  of  the 
Little  Boy  who  lived  by  himself,  because  the  rats  and 
the  mice  do  lead  me  such  a  life,  you  can  see  how 
essential  they  are  to  my  happiness.  They  are  a  good 
"antique"  investment,  too,  for  this  old  pottery, 
made  at  Bennington,  Vermont,  in  the  early  nine- 
teenth century,  is  being  eagerly  sought  for  by  col- 
lectors; and  a  well-decorated  crock  or  jug  bearing  the 


Old  Stoneware  —  some  of  it  Bennington  —  with  blue  decorations 


Cider  mugs  and  jugs  and  a  brown-and-cream  sirup  pitcher 


Brown  jugs  and  a  capacious  Shaker  milk-pan 


MY  KITCHEN  127 

authentic  mark  often  brings  as  high  as  ten  dollars. 
(Two  of  mine  were  given  me,  and  I  paid  fifty  cents 
apiece  for  the  rest  at  country  shops  and  auctions.) 
They  are  not  as  yet  actually  rare,  but  they  are  beau- 
tiful, some  of  them  as  lovely  in  shape  as  a  Greek 
amphora;  and  nearly  all  of  them  have  a  fine,  deep 
glaze  that  sets  off  their  quaint  blue  designs  of  birds 
or  flowers  or  scrolls  on  grounds  of  soft  grays  and 
ecrus. 

You  don't  want  to  hear  about  my  stove,  do  you? 
Because  it 's  just  a  stove,  with  its  good  days  and  its 
bad  days,  rather  temperamental  and  having  to  be 
humored,  very  much  like  your  own,  I  fancy.  Be- 
sides, I  want  to  hurry  on  to  my  shelf  of  Tole-ware. 
Not  that  it  is  entirely  of  that  antique  tin,  for  the 
teapot  is  a  plump  and  comely  pottery  lady,  who 
brews  tea  delightfully  and  who  wears  for  a  gown  a 
dark-brown  glaze,  brightened  with  white  and  red 
and  blue  enameled  flowers  and  bands  of  gilt.  This 
pretty  thing  was  given  me  when  I  was  a  girl,  by  an 
old,  old  gentleman  going  on  to  ninety,  and  he  told  me 
that  it  had  belonged  to  his  mother.  .The  snuffers 
and  tray  were  presents,  too,  as  was  the  little  tin  tea- 
caddy  painted  gay  with  green  and  red,  and  now  used 
for  a  match-box.  The  candlesticks,  however,  I  did 
buy :  old  tin  ones,  they  are,  redecorated  with  wreaths 
of  rosy  flowers  and  gold  lines.  They  were  a  dollar 
and  a  quarter  for  the  pair,  and  I  paid  a  dollar  and  a 
half  for  that  tall,  graceful,  black  pitcher  adorned  with 
splashes  of  red  and  scrolls  of  yellow. 


128     THE   NEXT-TO-NOTHING   HOUSE 

And  now  we  are  around  to  the  wide  door  again, 
and  to  my  fourth  shelf,  which  is  filled  with  cook- 
books: old  books,  new  books,  American,  English, 
French,  Italian,  Belgian,  and  even  Chinese  cook- 
books; I  think  I  have  nineteen  in  all.  They  are  my 
pride  and  joy,  for  cooking  is  the  one  domestic  task 
that  I  am  wildly  enthusiastic  about,  and  in  my  most 
ecstatic  moments  I  compare  myself  to  Balzac  and 
Dumas,  who  could  both  cook  and  write,  and  in  both 
were  equally  skillful.  I  am  fond  of  sitting  in  my 
rocker  and  reading  these  pages  of  fascination. 
Would  you  like  to  know  how  to  make  Marigold  Soup 
such  as  Miss  Edgeworth's  virtuous  little  Rosamund 
knew?  I  can  tell  you.  Will  you  have  Nuns'  Puffs 
from  South  Carolina;  or  Regency  Sauce  made  for 
Queen  Victoria  by  M.  Franca telli;  or  Gaufres  de  Brux- 
elles;  or  Currant  Wine  fit  for  Jenny  Wren  to  sip; 
or  Whigs?  One  book,  "The  Young  Housekeeper's 
Friend,"  even  takes  my  culinary  conscience  into  its 
keeping.  "How  often,"  says  this  printed  wisdom, 
"do  we  see  the  happiness  of  a  husband  abridged  by 
the  absence  of  skill,  neatness,  and  economy  in  the 
wife?  .  .  .  However  improbable  it  may  seem,  the 
health  of  many  a  professional  man  is  undermined 
and  his  usefulness  curtailed,  if  not  sacrificed,  because 
he  habitually  eats  bad  bread."  Which  quite  justifies 
my  interest,  you  see. 

I  have  been  so  happy  doing  over  my  kitchen, 
giving  that  important  part  of  my  life  the  setting 


My  cookbook  shelf,  the  Tole-ware,  and  a  stenciled  side-chair. 


MY  KITCHEN  131 

that  I  felt  it  ought  to  have,  inside  and  out!  In  the 
summer  my  green  window-boxes  are  full  of  spicy 
kitchen  herbs  —  marjoram,  basil  and  thyme,  with  an 
edging  of  frilled  parsley;  and  I  look  on  an  old-fash- 
ioned flower-garden,  fragrance  and  color  all  blended 
together  —  mignonette,  larkspur,  sweet  alyssum,  bal- 
sam, and  stock,  the  quaint  favorites  that  our  ances- 
tors loved  and  brought  with  them  from  the  old 
country.  "If  the  sun  is  beautiful  on  bricks  and 
pewter";  ah,  but  it  is,  lovely!  That 's  what  I  mean 
you  must  know ;  that 's  what  I  mean  you  must  feel : 
beauty  in  everything,  even  a  kitchen. 


VI 
THE   ELL-CHAMBER 

REALLY  it  is  very  much  like  a  lustre  plate,  this 
little  ell-chamber  of  mine.  I  mean,  it  has  the  same 
gay,  whimsical  brightness,  and  it  is  so  cheerfully 
unpretentious,  so  pleasantly  naive,  that  I  can't  help 
making  the  comparison.  The  architecture  is  analo- 
gous, also.  Have  you  ever  heard  the  jingling  descrip- 
tion of  pink  lustre  done  by  some  old-time  Salem  lady? 

Its  decoration  chiefly  shows 
House,  tree,  and  fence  all  tinted  rose; 
Where  walls  stand  on  a  crooked  slant, 
And  roofs  are  at  a  dangerous  cant. 

Well,  that 's  the  way  this  room  is.  You  can  stand 
upright  by  the  door  wall,  in  the  window  nooks,  and 
in  the  middle  of  the  room,  and  that 's  all.  Otherwise, 
beware  how  you  raise  your  head  suddenly,  for  the 
roof  slants  so  that,  for  the  most  part,  it  is  abrupt 
angles.  Briefly,  the  room  measures  twelve  and  a 
half  by  nine  and  three  fourths  feet;  add  to  that  two 
recessed  windows  set  about  three  feet  back,  and  you 
have  an  idea  of  the  floor-space.  Of  course,  this  room 
was  an  afterthought;  it  did  n't  belong  to  the  original 
structure  of  my  house,  and  in  the  wide  and  pleasant 
early  days,  no  doubt,  a  rambling  attic  took  its  place. 
And  then,  when  the  old  ell  was  torn  down,  and  my 


THE  ELL-CHAMBER  133 

small  and  unimaginative  kitchen  built  on,  this  little, 
angled  room  was  the  logical  upper  story. 

When  I  look  at  it  I  recall  Rudder  Grange,  and  the 
requisites  of  that  floating  mansion  for  a  maid;  my 
establishment  has  the  same  limitations:  she  must  be 
small!  But  maids,  big  or  little,  you  know,  are 
difficult  to  get  nowadays;  and  when  my  friends, 
considering  all  my  writing  and  all  my  letters,  say, 
"My  dear,  you  ought  to  have  a  good  secretary,"  I 
always  answer  meekly, "  Oh,  please,  I  'd  so  much  rather 
have  a  good  cook."  Still,  since  I  am  sure  that  some- 
where in  the  world  there  is  a  not  impossible  She  who 
shall  command  my  stove  and  me,  I  made  up  my 
mind  that  I  must  prepare  for  her:  give  her  such  a 
pleasant  room  that  she  would  live  with  me  long,  long 
years,  like  Felicite,  of  the  simple  heart  and  beloved 
memory. 

My  first  problem,  of  course,  was  space:  where  to 
put  the  few  pieces  so  necessary  to  even  the  most 
elementary  existence.  A  good-sized,  single  couch 
would  fit  agreeably  along  the  low  wall  at  the  back ;  a 
table  to  hold  books,  a  candlestick,  and  a  glass,  could 
be  placed  at  the  couch's  head;  against  the  opposite 
wall,  a  large  shirt-waist  box.  On  the  right  of  the 
door  there  was  just  room  enough  for  a  small  side- 
chair;  while  on  the  left  was  my  one  really  respectable 
wall-space,  the  only  place  where  a  bureau  could  be 
put,  and  an  accompanying  mirror  hung.  And  now 
I  am  come  to  the  crux  of  my  difficulty,  to  my  real 


134     THE   NEXT-TO-NOTHING   HOUSE 

problem.  //  I  had  a  bureau  there  was,  literally,  no 
room  to  write;  and  I  have  found  that  my  maids, 
almost  without  exception,  transient  as  they  were, 
wanted  a  place  for  their  correspondence.  Also, 
since  the  domestic  situation  in  a  college  town  is 
frequently  met  by  employing  a  student,  who  thereby 
earns  his  way  through  school,  and  acquires  certain 
culinary  facts  which  will,  later  on,  make  him  in- 
valuable to  some  woman,  I  simply  had  to  have  a  desk, 
on  the  off-chance  of  that  not  impossible  He.  But, 
if  I  used  the  ordinary  desk  of  commerce,  there  would 
be  room  for  writing,  but  none  for  clothes.  And  thus 
I  cut  the  Gordian  knot:  I  bought  a  slant-top  desk, 
—  new,  of  course,  but  built  along  the  old  lines, — 
and  so  had  two  pieces  in  one.  Desks,  in  the  middle 
years  of  the  eighteenth  century,  werecalled  "bureaus," 
you  know;  and  I  really  am  proud  of  my  consistent 
solution,  because  it  so  completely  economizes  space. 
I  commend  it  to  all  dwellers  in  small  houses  and 
apartments,  for  the  slanting  top  lets  down,  and  there, 
directly  at  hand,  are  your  writing  accommodations 
in  shallow  drawers  and  pigeonholes,  while  below  is 
your  ample  drawer-room. 

And  now  I  was  ready  for  the  glad  adventure  of 
color,  always  a  pleasing  occupation.  First,  I  had  to 
consider  the  seasons:  a  white,  interminable  winter, 
an  autumn  which  comes  early,  a  spring  lingering 
late,  and  a  sudden  summer,  which  can  be  almost 
tropically  hot.  That  room,  if  I  painted  it  in  grays, 


My  painted  desk  and  very  Victorian  chair 


THE  ELL-CHAMBER  137 

would  be  vastly  depressing  in  bleak  weather;  a 
yellow  might  be  oversultry  for  summer;  blues  would 
be  charming  in  June,  or  rose-pink  in  January,  but 
neither  would  make  you  happy  the  whole  year 
through.  Those  painted  walls  —  too  slanting  for 
any  paper  hangings  to  stay  on  them  —  closed  so 
tightly  overhead  that  you  could  n't  take  any  color 
risk.  Then,  as  I  was  puzzling,  I  fell  in  love  with  a 
glazed  English  chintz,  warm  and  cool  all  at  once,  and 
sweetly  patterned  with  butterflies  and  roses.  The 
surface  color  lingers  between  brown  and  gray,  the 
hovering  butterflies  are  very  blue,  and  the  roses 
deep-pink,  with  daring  little  dashes  of  yellow.  Here, 
then,  was  my  color-scheme !  I  had  the  walls  painted 
the  same  gray-brown,  and  the  floor  a  slightly  darker 
tone.  The  chintz  I  used  in  roller-curtains  at  the 
windows  —  a  method  which,  as  they  were  small, 
would  give  decorative  color,  and  exclude  less  air 
than  any  other.  Alas,  that  I  cannot  show  them  to 
you;  but  to  do  so  was  a  photographic  impossibility, 
and,  instead,  I  display  a  strip  of  the  flowered  chintz 
for  your  attention. 

On  the  floor  I  put  the  other  half  of  my  rag  carpet, 
—  leaving  a  broad  border  of  painted  board,  —  and 
that  part  of  my  harmony  was  complete:  rose-red, 
blue,  ecru,  black,  and  yellow;  all  the  chintz  colors 
were  woven  in  those  homemade  strips.  For  the 
couch-cover  I  used  an  old  woven  coverlet,  picked  up 
for  four  dollars  at  the  same  wayside  auction  where  I 


138    THE  NP:XT-TO-NOTHING  HOUSE 

bought  my  rag  carpet.  Or  rather  R—  -  picked  it 
up,  and  then,  wailing  at  his  extravagance,  besought 
me  to  take  it  off  his  hands.  Which  I  did,  and  I  have 
never  regretted  my  kindness.  It  is  a  homely,  butter- 
nut-dyed fabric,  and  its  primitive  pattern,  by  name 
"Sunrise,"  is  the  mother  of  a  number  of  more  intri- 
cate leaf-designs:  "Muscadine  Hulls"  and  "Hickory 
Leaf,"  for  example.  Its  colors — brownish-ecru,  buff, 
and  quite  a  bit  of  black  —  agree  excellently  with  the 
rest  of  the  room;  and,  for  cushions,  I  have  two  of 
bright  medium-blue  poplin,  and  one  of  coarsely  wo- 
ven light-brown  burlap  -  -  a  cloth  that  conveys,  as 
a  finer  piece  could  not,  the  feeling  of  the  coverlet 
texture. 

But  nothing  in  my  cheerful  room  gives  me  the 
pleasure  which  my  decorated  furniture  does.  For  I 
did  n't  think  I  could  do  it,  —  paint  not  being  my 
natural  method  of  expression,  —  and  when  I  found 
I  could,  I  knew  all  the  blessed  joy  of  an  artist  blend- 
ing his  hues  for  some  masterpiece.  You  see,  I  trust- 
fully bought  the  paint  from  a  color-card,  assuming 
its  veracity;  but,  when  I  applied  the  first  coat, 
O —  complimented  me  upon  my  pretty  lavender 
chairs.  Which  wasn't  at  all  what  I  intended;  so  I 
took  that  paint,  and  I  shook  that  paint,  and  I  added 
blues  and  a  suspicion  of  yellow ,  and  stirred  vigorously, 
and  painted  samples  of  wood,  until  I  got  just  the  soft 
brown-gray  of  the  chintz.  My  little  chairs  are  the 
spindle-back  sort  that  you  must  remember  seeing  at 


THE  ELL-CHAMBER  141 

your  grandmother's;  very  Victorian  they  are,  and 
virtuous;  sitting  on  them,  you  couldn't  think  any- 
thing but  blameless  thoughts.  The  frames  I  painted 
to  match  the  walls  and  chintz  surface,  but  the  spindles 
I  colored  blue,  to  consort  with  those  bright  butter- 
flies. And,  that  the  rose-pink  might  not  be  lost,  I 
adorned  either  side  of  the  top-rail  with  little  gay 
"button  roses."  Shall  I  tell  you  how  to  do  them, 
how  to  get  just  that  quaint  and  artless  effect?  I 
borrowed  a  thought  from  my  old  lady's  rug-making 
memories.  She  had  contrived  her  roses  in  the  "cup 
and  saucer"  fashion,  tracing  around  the  saucer, 
making  scallops  with  the  cup.  I  took  two  sizes  of 
buttons  and  did  precisely  the  same  thing  (first  study- 
ing the  roses  on  a  pink-lustre  ancestral  plate), 
painted  them  a  bright  rose  outlined  with  blue  —  and, 
do  you  know,  the  result  is  most  engaging.  My  desk 
I  decorated  in  similar  fashion,  the  wooden  knobs 
adding  the  bright  blue  note;  and  my  nai've,  good 
little  table  has  a  gray  body  and  blue  spindle-legs. 
On  the  piazza  I  did  my  work  —  an  ideal  way  to 
paint,  for  it  was  mid- April,  and  I  rose  every  morning 
very  early,  before  either  the  wind  or  my  neighbors 
were  awake.  I  had  the  whole  empty  world  to  my- 
self !  I  could  almost  see  the  daffodils  pushing  their 
green  spears  up  through  the  turf,  and  I  learned  that 
the  crows  in  my  tall  trees  talked  very  differently  in 
those matinal hours,  saying  not  "Caw,"  but  "Ca-aw!" 
most  emphatically.  Ah,  I  loved  everything  then, 
for  mine  was  the  joy  of  creating! 


142     THE   NEXT-TO-NOTHING  HOUSE 

May  I  confide  to  you  how  much  my  little  lustre- 
plate  room  cost?  I  think  I  '11  itemize  it  for  you, 
excluding,  of  course,  the  expense  of  painting  the 
floor  and  walls,  for  this  had  to  be  done  anyway,  and, 
besides,  I  do  not  consider  it  a  logical  furnishing  item. 
Well,  to  begin  with,  my  rag  carpet,  as  you  know, 
was  two  dollars  and  sixty-five  cents.  Perhaps,  even, 
you  could  count  it  a  trifle  less,  since  I  still  have  some 
usable  strips  left.  My  little  chairs  I  got  at  an 
auction  in  Our  Town;  and,  as  they  were  put  up  at 
different  times  for  bidding,  one  was  fifty  cents,  the 
other  sixty.  The  small,  spindle-legged  table,  found 
at  a  secondhand  shop,  was  seventy-five  cents  more, 
and  my  desk  I  bought  for  sixteen  dollars  and  seventy- 
five  cents,  from  an  enormous  emporium  where  you 
may  purchase  anything  from  a  pound  of  prunes  to  an 
incubator:  and,  all  told,  the  paint  could  not  have 
amounted  to  more  than  a  dollar.  The  chintz  I  paid 
a  dollar  and  ninety-five  cents  a  yard  for,  —  a  modest 
price  for  such  posied  prettiness,  —  and  three  yards 
made  my  roller-curtains.  Let  me  see,  that 's  five 
dollars  and  eighty-five  cents,  is  n't  it?  Eight  yards  of 
blue  poplin  for  covering  the  shirt-waist  box,  making 
the  large  pillow-covers,  and  the  small,  tufted  chair- 
cushions,  came  to  only  four  dollars  more;  the  burlap 
was  forty-seven  cents,  and  the  three  pillows  averaged 
a  dollar  apiece.  Oh,  yes,  and  I  must  n't  forget  my 
little  brass  candlesticks,  —  five  dollars  for  the  pair, 
—  nor  my  other  touch  of  gilt,  the  chaste  oval  mirror 


THE  ELL-CHAMBER  145 

which  actually  started  life  as  a  picture-frame;  it  was 
the  gift  of  a  collecting  friend,  and  I  followed  her 
example  and  put  in,  not  a  bygone  picture,  but  a 
looking-glass,  which  cost  but  a  dollar  and  a  quarter. 
As  to  my  silhouette  and  old  French  print,  they  were 
moderation  itself:  framing  and  all,  they  were  less 
than  five  dollars  —  four  and  sixty  cents  to  be  abso- 
lutely accurate.  And  as  for  my  coverlet,  that,  as 
I  told  you,  was  four  dollars. 

I  have  just  added  up  a  long  column  of  figures: 
fifty  dollars  and  forty-two  cents  is  the  result. 
You  must  not  think  I  am  urging  you  to  impossible 
economies.  The  desk  you  may  buy  at  the  same 
price  that  I  did;  as  to  the  chairs  and  the  table,,  they 
are  not  unusual  finds;  I  would  guarantee  to  start  out, 
and  come  back  with  a  round  dozen  at  the  end  of  any 
perfect  collecting-day;  in  spite  of  their  domestic 
prettiness  they  are  still  unsought.  The  carpet  and 
the  coverlet  might  present  more  difficulties;  still,  all 
large  department  stores  are  selling  machine-made 
rag  carpets  which  are  inexpensive,  durable,  and, 
oftentimes,  quite  agreeably  colored.  And  the  woven 
coverlet  might  appropriately  be  replaced  by  one 
made  of  burlap,  denim,  or,  even,  unbleached  cotton, 
banded  with  the  window-chintz.  In  a  little  room  of 
this  sort  it  is  a  matter  of  harmony  rather  than 
expenditure;  it  is  a  gentle  simplicity,  not  luxury,  that 
you  want. 

And  now  that  I  have  satisfied  your  curiosity,  can 


146     THE  NEXT-TO-NOTHING  HOUSE 

you  gratify  mine?  Do  you  happen  to  know  of  a 
brisk  and  willing  maidservant  (small),  who  likes 
rustic  retirement,  and  is  fond  of  children  and  cats  and 
old  furniture?  If  you  do,  such  an  one  will  meet 
with  good  encouragement,  I  assure  you! 


I 

CH 


VII 
THE   HEPPLEWHITE  BEDROOM 

DOWN  the  backstairs,  through  the  kitchen  and 
dining-room  and  parlour,  out  into  the  front  hall  again. 
That 's  the  way  we  have  to  go,  because  my  Hepple- 
white  bedroom  lies  just  across  the  hall  from  the 
parlour,  and  is  much  the  same  ample,  square,  high- 
studded  sort  of  chamber  —  a  trifle  larger,  that  's  all. 

But,  perhaps  I  'd  better  go  back  and  begin  with  a 
story,  a  story  which  concerns  L —  -  's  redecorated 
drawing-room,  long  and  lovely  and  full  of  some  of 
the  most  delightful  furniture  that  I  know.  I  said  to 
B—  — ,  "It 's  so  beautiful  that,  when  you  first  see  it, 
you  just  gasp!"  "Ah,"  replied  B—  -  sadly.  "No- 
body 's  ever  going  to  gasp  at  my  drawing-room  except 
my  husband,  and  that  will  be  when  he  gets  the  bills!" 
Which  is  precisely  what  I  am  afraid  of  now  with  you ; 
but  oh,  please  do  gasp  both  ways;  because  my  yellow- 
and-blue  chamber  ^s  charming  even  if  it  is  expensive. 
And,  really,  I  am  not  so  sure  that  it  is;  expensive, 
I  mean,  for  lately  I  have  been  reading  furniture 
advertisements,  reading  them  not  for  idle  curiosity, 
but  to  arrive  at  comparative  values. 

At  quite  a  modest,  unfashionable  shop,  I  found  I 
could  buy  a  Louis  Sixteenth  Walnut  Suite  (four  pieces 
in  all)  for  two  hundred  and  ninety-nine  dollars,  and 
it  had  been  reduced  from  four  hundred  and  ten;  at 


150      THE   NEXT-TO-NOTHING   HOUSE 

another  furniture  "Emporium,"  an  Antique  Ivory 
Bedroom  Suite  (I  quote  most  accurately  though  I 
have  n't  the  remotest  idea  what  Antique  Ivory  is) 
was  just  eight  dollars  and  seventy-five  cents  less, 
while  Queen  Anne,  William  and  Mary,  and  Tudor 
inaccuracies  ran  from  twenty-five  to  fifty  dollars 
under  the  first  price.  Now  my  furniture  —  and  it 
includes  a  bed,  a  bureau,  a  tall  chest,  a  day-bed, 
three  chairs,  a  light-stand,  a  shaving-mirror,  and  two 
bas-relief  looking-glasses  —  was  just  three  hundred 
and  three  dollars  and  a  half.  And  my  accessories, 
by  which  I  mean  rugs,  coverlet,  tester  and  valances, 
curtains,  lamp,  stove,  and  various  oddments,  were 
only  seventy-five  dollars  and  fifty  cents  more; 
altogether,  you  perceive,  three  hundred  and  eighty- 
nine  dollars  for  the  whole  room  —  less  than  some  of 
my  friends  have  paid  for  a  single  piece.  And  my 
dear  furniture  was  not  made  wholesale  for  a  credulous 
public,  nor  sold  at  just  one  enormous  single  shop,  but 
was  fashioned  mostly  by  North  Country  joiners  who 
loved  their  craft  with  a  leisurely  affection.  Two  ex- 
ceptions there  are:  my  sturdy,  rather  primitive  day- 
bed,  which  came  from  a  Pennsylvania  Dutch  settle- 
ment, from  Manheim  where  Baron  Stiegel  had  his 
famous  eighteenth-century  glass  factories;  and  my 
lofty,  lovely  "four-poster,"  which  may  very  well 
have  been  made  in  England. 

There    is    an  engaging   legend    hereabouts    which 
concerns    itself  with  an    Englishman  who  came  to 


THE   HEPPLEWHITE   BEDEOOM       153 

Norwich  in  pre-Revolutionary  days,  and,  in  this 
little  New  England  town,  built  a  mansion  of  mag- 
nificence, costing,  so  tradition  says,  anywhere  from 
thirty  to  sixty  thousand  dollars,  a  really  great  sum 
for  those  days.  Workmen  were  brought  from  England 
to  carve  his  stately  mantels,  much  furniture  was  sent 
out  to  embellish  his  house,  and  my  bed,  found  in 
this  little  hamlet,  could  easily  have  been  one  that 
he  ordered  from  some  London  cabinetmaker.  From 
Hepple white,  perhaps;  anyway  I  like  to  think  so,  and 
certainly,  in  his  "  Cabinetmaker's  and  Upholsterer's 
Guide,"  there  is  a  design  given  which  is  very  similar, 
except  that  I  truly  think  mine  is  finer,  that  a  slenderer 
grace  informs  it. 

But  I  am  beginning  in  the  middle  when  I  ought  to 
be  showing  you  the  room  itself,  telling  you  that  it  is 
sixteen  feet  square  and  nine  feet  high;  that  there  are 
three  windows,  two  doors,  a  mantel,  and  a  Franklin 
stove,  and  another  defiant  radiator  which  also  I 
have  subdued  by  my  gentle  books.  As  to  the  ex- 
posure, why  that 's  northeast,  and  the  room  could  be  a 
desolate  winter  chamber  were  it  not  warmed  by 
yellows  and  touches  of  gilt,  and  made  interesting  by 
just  enough  blue  in  the  counterpane  and  coverlet 
and  rugs.  The  woodwork  is  painted  a  deep  cream, 
and  the  old  pine  floor  is  colored  a  cheerful  hue,  which 
is  not  spruce,  nor  pumpkin,  but  a  pleasanter,  more 
sunshiny  tone  than  either.  Oh,  the  room  was  full 
of  perplexing  questions,  and  I  pondered  them  long 


154      THE   NEXT-TO-NOTHING   HOUSE 

before  I  found  the  right  answers.  Of  course,  origi- 
nally, there  had  been  a  fireplace  in  the  chamber  - 
the  tall  and  narrow  mantel  proved  it;  but,  alas,  it 
had  gone  long  ago  to  the  limbo  of  lost  things,  and 
an  abominable  air-tight  stove  took  its  place.  That 
we  speedily  got  rid  of  and  then,  obviously,  there 
were  but  three  things  to  do:  to  make  the  best  of 
our  affliction,  to  tear  down  the  mantel  and  put  a 
piece  of  furniture  where  it  had  stood,  or  to  ferret 
out  some  antiquated  Franklin  stove  and  have  it 
adjusted  to  the  chimney. 

It  was  the  last  solution  which  we  chose,  it  being 
suited  both  to  beauty  and  economy;  besides,  before 
the  furnace  fire  is  lighted  in  the  fall,  or  when  it  goes 
out  in  chilly  May,  my  cherished  Hepplewhite  room 
can  be  a  barn  for  comfort,  a  barn  where  there  is  n't 
any  hay  to  snuggle  down  in,  and  a  wintry  wind 
whistles  through  the  cracks.  For  it  is  directly  over 
the  cellar,  and  that  cellar  has  a  dirt  floor  and  endless 
corridors.  Sometimes,  when  the  spring  floods  are 
with  us,  I  think  of  giving  gondola  parties;  such 
romantic  arches  there  are  to  pass  through,  and  there 
is  one  shuddering,  bricked-up  place  that  always 
reminds  me  of  "The  Cask  of  Amantillado."  Still, 
comfort  aside,  I  think  I  'd  rather  have  my  Franklin 
stove  than  the  finest  highboy  in  the  world,  for  a  fire 
"trims"  a  room;  even  without  my  silhouettes,  my 
"Peace  Mirror,"  or  my  old  faience,  the  leaping 
flames  would  make  that  side  wall  lovely. 


The  "Peace  Mirror,"  my  old  Franklin  stove,  and  the 
slat-back  rocker 


THE   HEPPLEWHITE   BEDROOM       159 

My  firedogs  are  the  plainest  things;  stout  and 
black  and  a  little  crooked;  wrought,  I  suppose,  at 
some  farm  smithy.  They  are  scarcely  the  andirons 
of  my  dreams,  but  then,  you  would  n't  have  me  sit 
down,  Alexander-like,  and  weep  because  there  were 
no  more  antique  worlds  to  conquer,  would  you?  The 
stove  is  plain,  too;  not  half  so  fine  as  the  fire-frame  in 
the  parlour;  but  I  have  seen  early-nineteenth-century 
advertising-cuts  which  greatly  resembled  it,  and  its 
shiny  brass  knobs  and  rosettes  make  me  very  happy. 
And  it  was  cheap!  It  came  from  that  so- justly- 
celebrated  wayside  auction  —  I  promise  never  again 
to  refer  to  it  —  where  I  got  the  rag  carpet  and  the 
butternut  coverlet;  and  it  was  only  ten  dollars,  about 
a  fourth  of  what  a  new  one  would  cost,  and  much 
less  than  is  asked  usually  for  a  really  old  Franklin 
stove. 

At  the  left  is  a  small  maple  light-stand,  quite  un- 
adorned by  marquetry,  but  with  simple,  slender 
lines;  and  above  it  hangs  one  of  my  most  treasured 
possessions  —  an  engraved  portrait  of  Horace  Wai- 
pole,  done  after  the  Romney  painting  and  framed  in 
black  with  a  little  inner  line  of  gilt.  It  bears  his 
familiar  signature,  "Hor.  Walpole,"  and  the  date, 
April  28th,  1790  —  oddly  enough,  just  the  year 
Webster  Cottage  was  built.  True  it 's  only  the 
signature  to  a  receipt;  but  then,  such  an  interesting 
receipt,  made  out  to  Cha.  Bedford  (his  deputy  at  the 
Treasury)  for  one  thousand,  five  hundred  and  six 


160     THE   NEXT-TO-NOTHING   HOUSE 

pounds  and  six  shillings.  Of  course  I  'd  rather  have 
a  letter,  for  choice,  one  to  Henry  Conway,  or  the 
Countess  of  Upper-Ossory,  or  to  his  artistic  protegee, 
Lady  Diana  Beauclerc;  but  then,  Walpole  letters  are 
hard  to  get,  and  I  am  very  lucky  to  have  this.  Do 
you  accuse  me  of  burning  candles  to  him?  Well, 
why  should  I  not?  He  is  the  patron  saint  of  all  good 
collectors,  an  example  for  us,  his  neophytes,  to  follow. 
Just  recently  I  read  a  letter  of  his  concerning  a 
manuscript  he  very  much  wished  to  possess:  "But 
the  one  you  mention  is  more  curious,  and  what  I 
should  be  very  glad  to  have;  and,  if  I  can  afford  it, 
will  give  whatever  shall  be  thought  reasonable;  for  I 
would  by  no  means  take  advantage  of  the  poor  man's 
ignorance  or  necessity,  and  therefore  should  wish  to 
have  it  estimated  by  some  connoisseur."  To  my  mind 
a  lofty  pinnacle  of  collecting  virtue ! 

My  silhouettes,  too,  deserve  your  attention.  They 
were  found  in  a  little  bookshop  in  Carlsbad,  and 
given  to  me  by  a  traveling  friend  who  remembered 
my  passion  for  these  old  profiles.  Three  are  unique 
in  my  silhouette  experience,  and  all  are  charming  in 
their  frames  of  gilt  passe  partout.  Look  closely  at 
the  two  eighteenth-century  shadows;  they  are  cut 
with  meticulous  fineness,  and  the  bits  of  silk  and 
velvet  and  brocade  introduced  into  the  costumes 
are  as  fresh  as  they  were  a  hundred  and  fifty  years 
ago.  The  little  one  at  the  right  is  a  rather  unusual 
size,  half  the  figure  instead  of  the  accustomed  profiled 


fe: 


- 


" 


Horace  Walpole,  the  patron  saint  of  all  true  collectors 


THE  HEPPLEWHITE  BEDROOM      165 

bust;  and  the  revealing  white  lines  are  delicately 
etched  as  in  some  of  Edouart's  rare  examples.  And 
such  lovely,  intricate  passe  partout  patterns!  If  only 
they  did  work  of  this  sort  nowadays ! 

Can  you  see  all  the  excellences  of  my  "Peace 
Mirror,"  I  wonder?  It  is  quite  large,  thirty-two 
inches  long  and  seventeen  wide;  the  gilt  is  unmarred 
although  dulled  by  time,  and  the  bas-relief  at  the  top 
is  still  perfect.  The  plain,  slender  columns  have 
bandings  of  acanthus  leaves:  at  the  top  and  bottom 
and  in  the  middle,  and  the  overhanging  cornice  shows 
thirteen  pendant  balls.  I  'm  so  glad  that  it 's  just 
this  many,  for,  of  course,  the  number  differs  ac- 
cording to  the  size  of  the  mirror,  running  from  nine 
to  sixteen  or  seventeen;  now  I,  gazing  at  my  looking- 
glass,  can  so  much  more  easily  credit  the  legend  of 
these  balls  symbolizing  the  Thirteen  Original  States. 
(In  England,  I  am  told,  they  are  called  "Nelson's 
Cannon  Balls,"  but  I  disavow  so  unpatriotic  a 
suggestion!)  In  the  centre  of  the  bas-relief  is  the 
figure  of  a  woman  dressed  in  flowing,  classic  robes, 
emblematic  of  Peace;  for  she  holds  two  doves,  and, 
on  either  side,  are  heads  set  in  blazing  suns,  cele- 
brating, no  doubt,  the  Proclamation  which  put  an 
end  to  the  troublous  War  of  1812.  I  wish  I  knew 
who  made  it;  I  haven't  the  faintest  idea;  but,  per- 
haps, in  some  faded  newspaper  I  '11  stumble  unex- 
pectedly across  the  advertisement  of  its  merits.  I 
do  know  that  one  S.  Lothrop  had  a  Looking-Glass 


166      THE   NEXT-TO-NOTHING   HOUSE 

Warehouse  in  Boston,  on  Court  Street,  near  Concert 
Hall,  and  I  have  seen  a  most  exquisite  mirror  made 
by  some  Newburyport  craftsman  whose  name,  un- 
fortunately, has  escaped  me. 

On  the  right  hangs  an  engraving  of  Sarah,  Duchess 
of  Marlborough,  from  the  painting  by  Sir  Godfrey 
Kneller;  another  receipt,  another  signature,  "13  July 
1710,  Reed  in  full,  S.  Marlborough."  I  do  not  love 
her  so  well  as  I  do  my  gentle  Horace  —  who  could  ? 
-  but  since  I  like  ambitious  women,  and  since  even 
her  worst  enemy  certainly  could  n't  accuse  her  of 
a  lack  of  that  quality,  here  she  hangs,  to  my  great 
admiration.  I  had  meant  to  put  the  Duchess  and 
Walpole  closer  together,  directly  on  either  side  of  the 
mantel  mirror,  so  that  they  might  gossip  companion- 
ably  about  the  House  of  Hanover,  and  compare  notes 
on  bygone  courts;  I  know  from  the  anecdotes  which 
Walpole  has  left  that  he  was  amused  by  her  mordant 
tongue  and  unfettered  speech.  But  the  arrangement 
was  not  suitable;  neither  was  agreeable  to  it,  and 
now  Sarah  Jennings  hangs  nearer  my  cornucopia 
bas-relief  mirror  and  matches  its  black  and  gold  with 
her  old  frame.  This  looking-glass  is  smaller  and  not 
so  fine  as  my  "Peace  Mirror";  I  think  it  is  a  little 
later,  too,  —  the  turned  sides  would  indicate  that,  - 
but  it  is  very  handsome  and  well-proportioned,  and 
in  excellent  condition. 

But   all  this  time  you  may   be  saying  to  your- 
selves, "Why  does  she  use  Empire  mirrors  with  Hep- 


'S.  Marlborough,"  a  most  ambitious  woman.     After  the  portrait  by 
Sir  Godfrey  Kneller 


THE   HEPPLEWHITE   BEDROOM       169 

plewhite  furniture?"  I  '11  tell  you;  these  "taber- 
nacle framed "  glasses  are  not  only  semi-architec- 
tural, but  they  are  a  direct  legacy  from  eighteenth- 
century  classicism ;  and  furniture  of  the  Hepplewhite 
school  is  filled  with  this  spirit.  Besides,  in  Hepple- 
white's  book  of  designs  many  of  the  pier  glasses  are 
rectangular  in  shape,  quite  as  mine  are.  Conse- 
quently, they  fall  in  with  the  lines  of  the  room 
better  than  if  they  were  of  the  oval  variety,  which, 
by  the  way,  are  improbably  scarce  and  impossibly 
expensive.  My  bas-relief  mirror  is  a  fitting  com- 
panion to  the  small,  straight-front  mahogany  bureau 
below,  not  only  in  the  simplicity  of  the  structure, 
but  because  the  oval  brasses,  too,  are  adorned  with 
graceful  cornucopias.  And  a  further  embellishment 
is  the  inlay :  a  little  line  of  holly  around  each  drawer, 
and  a  broader  band  of  marquetry  just  above  the 
gracefully  turned  apron.  I  am  showing  it  to  you 
in  its  simplicity;  just  a  cross-stitch  pincushion,  a 
yellow  glass  perfume  bottle,  a  powder-puff  stand, 
and  an  old  glass  lamp. 

The  powder  stand  has  an  interesting  story;  may 
I  tell  it  to  you?  It  once  belonged  to  the  lovely 
Georgiana,  Duchess  of  Devonshire,  "the  best-bred 
woman  in  England,"  in  George  the  Fourth's  opinion. 
It  is  beautifully  carved,  part  of  a  toilet  set  made  from 
bog  oak  (thus  the  legend  has  been  handed  down  in 
my  family)  by  the  tenants  on  her  Irish  estate, — 
Lismore,  I  suppose, —  and  presented  to  her  as  a 


170     THE   NEXT-TO-NOTHING   HOUSE 


token  of  their  loyal  affection.  In  the  early  nineteenth 
century,  when  her  foster  sister  left  England  for 
distant  America,  the  Duchess  gave  her  this  powder 
box  as  a  keepsake.  Later,  the  woman's  daughter,  a 
seamstress  who  sewed  for  our  family,  gave  it  to  an 
aunt  of  mine  who,  in  her  turn,  bequeathed  it  to  me. 
Even  if  I  distrusted  this  tradition,  —  which  I  don't, 
-I  still  should  love  it;  it  is  so  graceful,  so  tenderly 
colored  by  time.  The  carving  is  really  fine  and 
delicate:  clusters  of  grapes  and  grape  leaves  set  in 
a  flaring  lily-cup,  while  the  little  knob  a-top  is  formed 
by  four  joining  acanthus  leaves. 


The  powder  stand, 
carved  from  bog 
oak  and  once 
owned  by  the  lovely 
Duchess  of  Devon- 
shire 


But  now,  lest  you  think  I  consort  overmuch  with 


Mr  straight-front   bureau   with   cornucopia    brasses   which   match   the 
bas-relief  mirror  hanging  over  it 


THE   HEPPLEWHITE   BEDROOM      173 

duchesses,  and  delight  only  in  the  society  of  the  beau 
monde,  let  me  say  that  the  yellow  glass  perfume 
bottle  was  found  in  a  tiny  North  End  shop,  and  that 
the  old  whale-oil  lamp  was  sent  me  by  a  collecting 
acquaintance  in  the  State  of  Maine.  It  is  most 
useful;  for  I  had  it  wired  for  electricity  and  bought 
a  little  ground-glass  shade,  an  accurate  reproduction 
of  what  it  once  must  have  had.  In  the  evening,  by 
its  admirable  light,  I  may  bind  my  hair;  at  night  I 
can  read  in  bed  without  danger  of  burning  the 
curtains,  a  frequent  accident  in  candlelit  times. 

I  remember,  in  reading  "Crime  and  Punishment," 
that  Dostoevski  said  every  human  being  must 
have  a  "theory  of  life."  Well  —  so  must  a  room; 
the  theory  of  mine  is  the  bed,  by  which  I  mean  that 
the  square  tester-rails  decided  the  type  of  the  rest 
of  the  furniture;  said  emphatically,  that  the  chest 
and  bureau  must  be  straight  and  not  swell-front, 
that  the  chairs  should  be  of  the  slat-back  variety 
(at  least  until  I  could  find  the  Cottage  Hepplewhite 
which  my  soul  craved),  and  my  day-bed  utterly 
lacking  in  curves.  The  valances,  too,  must  be 
straight-hanging,  the  side-curtains  merely  looped 
back,  but  ready  to  fall  in  vertical  folds,  the  mirrors 
"tabernacle  framed."  I  have  seen  many  of  these 
old  beds  robbed  of  all  their  dignified  beauty  by  using 
too  thin  a  fabric  (muslin  or  net),  and  draping  it  in  a 
rather  bouffant  fashion,  a  treatment  highly  suitable, 
of  course,  for  field  bedsteads.  I  chose  unbleached 


174     THE  NEXT-TO-NOTHING  HOUSE 

cotton  —  a  dead  white  would  have  been  ugly  and 
cold  —  and  really  the  effect  is  very  much  that  of  the 
old-fashioned  fustian,  which  was  a  mixture  of  linen 
and  cotton.  And  most  becoming  and  appropriate  to 
an  ancient  bed  it  is;  you  must  recall  how  full  Judge 
Samuel  Sewall's  "Letter  Book5"  is  of  references  to 
"beds  of  fustian."  Altogether  I  bought  twenty-seven 
yards;  at  fifteen  cents  a  yard  the  cost  was  almost 
negligible.  It  seems  a  lot  of  cloth,  I  know,  but  I  had 
to  allow  enough  for  a  deep  floor- valance,  for  the 
back  drapery,  for  ample  side-curtains,  for  a  tester- 
valance  and  a  canopy-cover. 

Did  you  ever  see  one  of  these  old  beds  with  just  a 
silly  frill  finishing  the  top;  with  no  sheltering  cur- 
tains or  protecting  back  draperies?  Yet  there  is  an 
excellent  reason  for  their  existence,  and  no  square- 
testered  bed  can  be  complete  without  them.  Before 
the  sixteenth  century  discovered  tall  pillars,  these 
curtains  were  suspended  from  a  del,  all  for  the 
protection  of  our  ancestors  from  draughts — draughts 
which  still  existed  through  the  seventeenth  and 
eighteenth  centuries  —  and  the  reason  why  our 
more  immediate  ancestors  often  left  the  head-posts 
uncarved,  knowing  that  the  curtains  would  conceal 
the  absence  of  adornment.  Draughts  may  have  dis- 
appeared in  our  better-built  houses,  but  the  decora- 
tive reason  for  draperies  has  not  vanished  with 
them;  and  so,  if  you  cannot  face  the  thought  of  cur- 
tains, why,  give  up  all  ambitious  ideas  of  a  canopy 


My  fine-lady  bed,  and  my  great-great-great-aunt's  patchwork 
counterpane 


bed,  so  naked,  so  purposeless  without  them,  and 
content  yourself  with  an  undemanding  "low  poster." 
My  tester-valance  and  side-curtains  are  bordered 
with  tassel  fringe  —  dangling  tassels  to  match  the 
carvings  on  the  foot-posts.  Oh,  those  adorable  posts ! 
No  photograph  in  the  world  can  do  justice  to  their 
tranquil  beauty,  to  the  reeding  which  tapers  so  har- 
moniously, springing  from  its  cup  of  leaves,  to  the 
carven  draperies  and  tassels,  bold  yet  delicate  —  ah, 
that  craftsman  knew  how  to  handle  his  tools !  —  to 
the  graceful  spade-feet. 

But  I  must  moderate  my  "gladness,"  for,  do  you 
know,  my  greatest  earthly  dread  is  to  be  called  the 
"Polly anna  of  Old  Furniture"!  Yet  I  am  tempted 
to  be  quite  as  exuberant  over  my  counterpane, 
because  it  was  fashioned  by  my  great-great-great- 
aunt  Alicia,  the  eighteenth-century  ancestress  for 
whom  the  Littlest  Daughter  was  named;  long,  long 
ago  she  made  it,  when  she  was  a  young  girl  in 
Ireland.  My  mind  reels  at  the  number  of  persevering 
pieces  in  it,  well  over  twenty-five  hundred,  and  "I 
never  at  all  saw  stitches  so  small."  The  pattern  is 
very  similar  to  what  I  have  heard  called  "  Job's 
Patience,"  a  fitting  name,  I  assure  you;  for  seventeen 
small  hexagons  make  up  a  nine-inch  six-sided  figure, 
and  these  are  banded  together  by  a  sash-work  of 
white.  In  the  centre  is  a  lovable  piece  of  copperplate 
chintz,  a  quaint  bouquet  of  tulips  and  roses  and 
sweet,  forgotten  blue  flowers;  and  the  many,  many 


178     THE   NEXT-TO-NOTHING   HOUSE 

pieces  are  bits  of  ancient  prints  and  percales,  dimo- 
thys,  callimancoes  and  sprigged  muslins  —  the  tan- 
gible testimony  of  ancient  dresses  long  ago  worn 
out.  The  dominant  colors  are  yellow  and  blue, 
which  is  why  it  goes  so  admirably  in  my  room;  but, 
like  all  really  old  and  satisfactory  counterpanes  of 
this  type,  it  has  other  colors:  greens,  pinks,  browns, 
and  even  reds,  all  blended  into  a  subtle  harmony. 

Sometimes  I  wonder  if  my  great-great-great-aunt 
knew,  as  she  sat  taking  her  dainty  stitches,  that  I, 
her  admiring  descendant,  'way  across  the  ocean  and 
more  than  a  century  later,  was  to  have  a  blue-and- 
yellow  room  in  which  her  patchwork  counterpane 
would  be  the  chiefest  adornment.  For  some  reason 
the  work  was  never  quite  completed,  never  cut  at  the 
corners  or  quilted;  and,  at  first,  I  intended  to  have 
both  things  done  for  me  by  some  local  Ladies  Aid 
Society;  but  when  it  came  actually  to  putting 
scissors  into  that  beloved  cloth  —  I  could  n't  do  jt. 
And  so,  instead,  I  have  arranged  it  as  you  see;  ar^d 
it  is  not  quilted  but  lined  with  the  finest  blue-sprigged 
muslin  I  could  buy.  My  "pillowbiers"  are  old,  too, 
made  from  half  a  homespun  sheet  presented  to  me 
by  B—  — ;  an  excellent  way  to  use  old  linen,  let  me 
tell  you;  for  half  a  sheet  just  makes  a  pair  of  proper 
pillowcases,  which,  edged  with  handmade  linen  lace 
of  some  antiquated  pattern,  will  give  entirely  the 
suggestion  of  age  your  canopy  bed  needs. 

And  now  that  I  have  made  the  bed  visible  to  you, 


-•* 


THE  HEPPLEWHITE  BEDROOM      181 

described  its  outward  signs,  let  me  tell  you  of  its 
inwardness,  the  effect  its  spiritual  qualities  have  on 
various  people.  B—  insists  that  I  receive  my 
friends  a  la  ruelle  like  Madame  de  Rambouillet;  any- 
thing else  is  unworthily  inconsistent,  she  declares; 
and  really,  the  feeling  of  the  bed  is  so  stately  that 
my  room  becomes  a  chambre  de  parade  as  well  as  a 
chambre  de  gite.  To  me  it  always  seems  like  an  old 
lady  who,  choosing  to  live  simply,  is  grande  dame 
none  the  less.  And  a  small  girl  of  my  acquaintance 
says  that  it  reminds  her  of  the  bed  where  Hop-o'- 
My-Thumb  found  the  Ogre's  seven  daughters  asleep. 
There,  you  have  it  from  three  angles! 

Maybe  you  will  think  my  homespun  rugs  un- 
worthy of  companionship  with  my  fine-lady  bed. 
Two  are  braided,  two  are  "drawn  in,"  one  is  knitted 
and  crocheted,  and  all  have  just  the  right  colors  to 
look  well  upon  my  happy  floor:  blues  and  yellows 
and  browns  and  firm  touches  of  black.  Four  are  old, 
picked  up  through  the  countryside  and  at  small 
dealers',  and  the  new  one  was  made  for  me  by  a 
skillful  rug-woman  who  understands  the  almost  for- 
gotten art  of  vegetable  dyes,  and  who  possesses  a 
fine  naive  sense  of  design.  I  feel  frugal  whenever  I 
look  at  it;  it  contains  all  the  devastated  stockings 
that  I  hated  to  darn  and  hated  to  throw  away.  If 
I  were  you  I  'd  begin  to  save  all  of  mine  this  very 
minute;  it 's  an  infinitely  better  use  than  making 
cleaning-cloths  of  them. 


182     THE   NEXT-TO-NOTHING   HOUSE 

Yes,  my  rugs  may  be  homespun,  but,  just  on  that 
account,  they  better  comport  with  my  blue  Chariot- 
Wheel  coverlet,  and  anything  finer  than  this  woven 
web  would  be  quite  out  of  place  on  my  old  Pennsyl- 
vania Dutch  day-bed.  I  am  very  fond  of  this  artless 
oak-and-maple  piece;  it  has  a  sort  of  homely  dignity; 
it  is,  to  my  way  of  thinking,  very  much  like  the 
simple,  sturdy  folk  of  that  region.  Finding  it  was 
one  of  my  rewards  for  going  last  June  to  Manheim, 
to  the  Feast  of  Roses  held  in  loving  memory  of  Baron 
Stiegel;  the  other  was  the  joy  of  taking  part  in 
one  of  the  few  really  romantic  festivals  America  can 
boast.  "In  the  month  of  June,  yearly,  forever  here- 
after, the  Rent  of  One  Red  Rose  if  the  same  be 
lawfully  demanded."  A  poet  as  well  as  a  glass- 
maker  wrote  that ! 

Have  you  a  moment  to  spare  for  the  silhouettes 
which  hang  just  above  the  day-bed?  Two  of  them, 
the  mother  and  daughter  in  the  dress  of  the  middle 
eighteen- thirties,  are  Austrian,  and  belong  to  that 
rarest  type  which  is  not  only  cut,  but  indented,  in 
a  most  interesting  way,  so  that  features,  orrrfSTtents, 
and  even  wrinkles  are  indicated.  They  are  the 
only  profiles  I  know  that  reveal  the  actual  lines  of 
age.  Their  setting  is  very  effective;  mounted  on 
azure  paper,  and  framed  so  that  they  are  recessed, 
these  women  might  be  looking  out  into  the  dusk  of 
some  blue  Danube  night.  The  upper  silhouette  is 
a  photographic  shade  of  the  Littlest  Daughter,  a 


f 

CO 


THE   HEPPLEWHITE   BEDROOM       185 

method  I  commend  to  your  attention  in  case  family 
photographs  seem  to  you,  as  they  do  to  me,  over- 
modern  for  old  walls. 

The  coverlet  color  is  just  a  little  darker  shade  of 
the  same  blue  that  is  in  my  curtains.  These  are 
made  of  simple  Tussore  silk,  looped  back  by  gilt 
bands  made  in  the  shape  of  acanthus  leaves.  Per- 
haps these  bands  are  a  little  later  in  period  than  the 
rest  of  my  room,  although  Sheraton's  second  book 
does  show  a  similar  draping;  moreover,  the  bonne 
femme  type  of  curtain,  used  in  several  of  my  other 
rooms,  hardly  suited  the  proud  bearing  of  this  cham- 
ber. And  ordinarily  I  do  not  care  for  glass-curtains; 
but,  in  a  ground-floor  bedroom,  they  are  highly 
essential,  especially  when  a  bronze  tablet,  interesting 
to  the  passing  tourist,  is  placed  next  the  right-hand 
window.  Still,  my  dotted  voile  is  so  sheer  that  it 
becomes  merely  the  veil  of  privacy,  and  shuts  out  no 
necessary  light  or  air. 

There  is  a  fainter  shade  of  blue,  indeed  almost 
cerulean,  in  the  strip  of  old  challis  which  lies  on  the 
top  of  my  tall,  six-drawered  chest.  I  put  it  there  for 
two  reasons:  first,  because  the  top  of  such  a  chest  is 
rarely  so  well  finished  as  the  rest  of  the  piece;  secondly, 
because  the  "Tree  of  Life"  design,  in  saffron  and 
cream  and  subtle  greens,  wandering  across  that  gentle 
blue,  is  one  of  the  loveliest  blendings  of  color  I  have 
ever  beheld.  I  have  no  doubt  at  all  of  its  being  some 
Oriental  fabric  brought  to  this  country  years  and 


186     THE   NEXT-TO-NOTHING   HOUSE 

years  ago.  I  found  it  in  the  old  farmhouse  where  I 
bought  my  little  stenciled  stool  and  my  three-dollar 
coverlet.  It  was  lying  in  one  of  the  drawers  of  an  old 
chest  very  much  like  mine  (though,  thank  Heaven, 
I  have  nothing  like  the  two  framed  coffin  plates 
which  hung  above  it!),  and  the  chest  the  farmer  did 
not  want  to  sell,  albeit  we  were  welcome  to  any- 
thing that  it  held.  This  charming  strip  became  mine 
for  twenty-five  cents;  I  bought  it  without  any  defi- 
nite idea  of  use— just  because  it  was  attractive.  And 
behold  my  reward! 

The  maple  chest  is  fifty-four  inches  high,  straight- 
lined  and  ample,  and  the  oval  brasses  show  that  inter- 
esting oakleaf-and-acorn  pattern.  At  the  top  is  a 
small  shaving-glass  which  came  to  me  all  the  way 
from  Seattle;  not  at  all  elaborate,  —  two  little 
drawers  with  two  little  glass  knobs,  —  but  adapted 
to  this  room  because  of  its  squarish  effect. 

My  table  does  curve  a  little;  still,  not  too  much  to 
be  incongruous;  and  its  delicate  marquetry  and 
straight,  tapering  legs,  banded  with  little  lines  of 
holly,  mark  it  as  belonging  to  the  Hepplewhite  school. 
It  is,  strictly  speaking,  a  card-table,  but  I  use  it  as  a 
place  to  write.  Indeed,  I  am  using  it  even  now, 
writing  these  very  words  on  an  inconsistent  machine 
when  I  should  be  employing  one  of  my  old  quill  pens. 
My  other  belongings,  however,  are  most  accordant: 
an  olive-green  Stoddard  glass  ink-bottle,  so  dark  as  to 
be  almost  black;  and,  for  a  paper  weight,  a  heavy  lump 


Mv  writing-table  and  the  tall  maple  chest  with  the  square  little 
shaving-mirror 


A  closer  view  of  my  writing-table.    Please  take  particular  notice  of  my 
old  "plain-featured"  doll 


THE  HEPPLEWHITE  BEDROOM      191 

of  crude  Stiegel  glass,  blue  as  a  sapphire,  purple  as 
the  western  ocean.  My  old,  plain-featured  doll  sits 
in  an  older  chair,  and  since  she  has  known  many  gen- 
erations she  is  my  wise  counselor  as  to  bygone  days 
and  customs.  Did  you  ever  think  how  much  a  doll 
has  a  chance  to  hear  when  nobody  knows  she  is 
listening? 

I  love  my  blue-and-yellow  room,  but  when  I  love 
it  most  I  scarcely  know:  at  high  noon  in  August  its 
cool  tranquillity  is  like  a  soothing  hand;  it  delights 
me  to  waken  very  early  on  May  mornings,  and  hear 
the  birds,  and  watch  the  first  sunlight  just  fingering 
the  heavy  green  shutters;  and,  those  same  shutters 
closed  tight  on  winter  nights,  I  love  to  lie  secure  in 
my  tall  bed,  and  read,  and  admire  the  firelight, 
trimming  my  room.  Perhaps  my  candid  chamber  is 
to  me  as  the  old  song  was  to  that  long-dead  King  of 
Spain,  who  heard  it  night  after  night  with  happiness, 
and  rewarded  the  singer  with  "  a  dukedom  and 
wealth  beyond  the  dreams  of  avarice."  I  know  I 
shall  never  tire  of  it:  it  is  something  like  a  dream 
come  true! 


VIII 

\ 

THE   UPPER  HALL  AND   BATHROOM 

THE  steps  are  so  high  and  the  treads  are  so  narrow ! 
They  always  remind  me  of  a  Mother  Goose  jingle; 
and,  though  I  never  have  had  to  carry  anybody  home 
in  a  little  wheelbarrow,  I  'm  always  expecting  to,  so 
perilous  are  they  to  the  uninitiated.  I  measure  my 
guests'  agility  by  the  way  they  climb!  The  stairs' 
ladderlike  steepness  has  another  disadvantage,  too: 
the  treads  are  so  shallow  that  the  descending  heel 
invariably  scrapes  a  long  line,  and  the  rise  has  to 
be  repainted  every  month,  to  look  well-kept.  Once 
I  tried  ordinary  carpeting  —  and  the  effect  was 
appalling:  staring  and  inappropriate.  But,  if  ever 
I  find  just  the  right  old  lady,  with  just  the  right  old 
loom  and  a  real  eye  for  color,  I  shall  have  her  weave 
me  a  rag  carpet  to  echo  my  chintz,  "  gay  and  lively 
to  look  at,"  rather  like  the  stripes  which  decorate 
the  study  and  the  ell-chamber,  but  with  more  ecru 
and  less  crimson,  of  course.  There  is  a  stately  house 
in  tranquil  white  Woodstock,  where  the  stairs  are 
carpeted  this  way;  the  rag  carpet  repeats  the  colors 
in  the  antiquated  wall-paper,  and  the  resulting  har- 
mony is  far  finer  than  if  even  the  most  expensive 
Oriental  strips  were  used. 

Come,  climjb  my  twelve  steps  with  me,  and  cling 
tight  to  the  banisters,  if  you  like.  The  upper  hall 


Another  view  of  the  old  wall-paper;  the  little  birch  light-stand  and  my 
benign  Benjamin  Franklin 


THE  UPPER  HALL  AND  BATHROOM  195 

is  small  and  quite  pointed  at  one  end;  then  it  sud- 
denly broadens  out  and  gives  me  space  for  a  table 
with  a  gilt-framed  picture  above,  and  a  deep  nook 
for  a  linen-chest  and  a  chair.  You  can  see  the  old 
panel  of  wall-paper  much  better  here,  although  I  do 
think  its  fantastic  contours  and  quaint  figures  are 
more  effective  viewed  a  little  lower  down. 

A  small  "drawn-in"  rug,  another  one  from  the  old, 
disdainful  lady,  lies  in  front  of  this  pictured  space. 
It  is  not  particularly  fine  work,  but  the  colors  are 
agreeable  —  black  and  light  brown  and  dulled  pink; 
while  the  design  always  reminds  me  of  the  figures 
you  see  when  you  suddenly  close  your  eyes  —  queer, 
brilliant  triangles  coming  out  of  a  surface  of  darkness. 
As  oddly  primitive  as  that;  hence  its  decorative, 
un-self conscious  charm. 

My  table  was  still  less  costly:  seventy-five  cents, 
from  a  family  who  were  moving  away,  and  who 
did  n't  want  to  take  "  any  old  stuff  "  with  them. 
They  did  n't;  I  know  this  to  my  sorrow,  for  an  hour's 
delay  lost  me  a  lovely  swell-front  Hepplewhite  bu- 
reau, inlaid  and  with  "E  Pluribus  Unum"  brasses, 
which  they  sold  for  five  dollars  because  a  back  foot 
was  broken.  Though,  had  I  bought  it  at  that  price, 
my  conscience  might  have  troubled  me;  whereas  now 
it  does  n't  keep  me  awake  o'  nights  at  all,  for  my  table 
is  just  an  ordinary  birch  light-stand,  but  with  grace- 
fully turned  legs  which  redeem  it  from  utter  plain- 
ness. Above  it  hangs  a  familiar  lithograph  of  Ben- 


196     THE   NEXT-TO-NOTHING   HOUSE 

jamin  Franklin;  you  remember,  don't  you,  that 
benign  face  and  the  waving  locks  which  fall  long  upon 
his  fur-collared  coat?  The  frame  is  ancient,  but  still 
bravely  gilt,  which  makes  it  most  useful  here,  not 
only  as  adornment,  but  to  give  an  additional  light 
effect  to  the  hall,  which  it  needs,  since  it  is  decidedly 
overdark.  It  has  much  worth,  but  no  price,  being 
the  gift  of  friendship;  and  it  has  just  come  from  an 
attic  of  marvels  where  it  abode  in  the  pleasant  com- 
panionship of  old  and  beloved  furniture.  And  the 
brass  candlestick  —  that  was  two  dollars  —  adds  its 
burnished  touch,  besides  being  helpful  in  case  the 
electricity  goes  off,  which  frequently  happens,  alas! 
for  my  son  is  interested  in  wireless,  my  Russian  maid 
not  sympathetic  with  my  iron  or  toaster — and  fuses 
are  but  fuses,  after  all. 

Of  course,  it  's  even  darker  in  the  linen-chest  nook 
— you  lucky  housekeepers  with  built-in  linen-presses, 
shelves  and  shelves,  and  more  room  than  you  need, 
don't  know  how  blessed  you  are;  the  one  thing 
that  consoles  me  is  the  fact  that  I  was  able  to 
achieve  my  storage-space  and  light-effect  at  the  same 
time.  I  bought  a  capacious  old  pine-chest,  and 
painted  it  a  bright,  clear  blue,  " cart-blue,"  we  call  it 
hereabouts.  It  just  fits  in  against  the  side  wall,  and, 
as  it  is  divided  into  two  compartments,  I  have  a 
place  for  my  towels  and  a  place  for  my  bed  linen, 
pieces  which  are  destined  to  immediate  use,  instead 
of  having  to  dash  downstairs  and  open  grudging, 


The  "cart-blue"  chest  and  chair  which  thrill  me  domestically  whenever 

I  pass  them 


THE  UPPER  HALL  AND  BATHROOM  199 

stingy  drawers  in  my  china-closet.  I  paid  just  a 
dollar  and  a  half  for  my  chest,  and  it  delights  me  to 
know  that  it  very  much  resembles  the  ones  our  Puri- 
tan ancestors  brought  with  them,  corded  and  tied  and 
full  of  fustians  and  "wallen  counterpaines."  Joiners 
kept  on  making  them  steadily  through  the  seven- 
teenth and  eighteenth  centuries,  and,  no  doubt, 
through  the  early  nineteenth,  for  chests  are  as  old  as 
civilized  man,  and  while  civilization  lasts  I  predict 
they  will  endure.  Where  did  I  get  it?  Ah,  that 's 
a  secret  I  want  to  impart  to  you.  You  must  avail 
yourself  of  the  beauty  of  simple  things,  you  must 
become  "a  snapper-up  of  unconsidered  trifles." 
Hardly  anybody  nowadays  wants  one  of  these  old, 
unpretentious  chests,  although  they  are  very  useful, 
and  have  a  certain  rough  and  homely  charm.  I 
bought  mine  at  a  secondhand  shop  where  I  often 
find  treasures:  once  I  got  a  Bennington  jug,  with 
the  finest  glaze  I  ever  saw,  for  half  a  dollar,  and  a 
pressed-glass  Venus  and  Cupid  creamer  for  twenty- 
five  cents.  Even  at  the  risk  of  repetition,  I  insist 
that  your  collecting  life  must  include  an  Esteemed 
Secondhand  Man,  a  Favorite  Dealer,  and  an 
Obliging  Junkman.  All  three  have  their  necessary 
places,  and  are  vital  to  your  antiquarian  interests. 
My  small  three-slat  chair  I  bought  for  a  dollar,  years 
ago;  it  has  had  changing  colors  and  various  abodes, 
and  now  has  settled  down  in  a  bright-blue  coat  as  a 
companion  to  the  chest.  Very  useful  it  is  to  sit  in,  as 


200      THE   NEXT-TO-NOTHING  HOUSE 

I  put  away  my  sheets  and  "pillowbiers,"  and,  if  I 
were  bromidic,  I  should  add  that  it  brightens  the  cor- 
ner where  it  is.  Truly,  I  get  a  domestic  thrill  of  happi- 
ness every  time  I  pass  my  dear,  homely  blue  group. 
Just  the  same  shade  decorates  my  bathroom:  blue 
walls,  white  ceiling  and  woodwork,  and  porcelain 
fittings.  I  feel  a  pride  in  that  single  bathroom  which 
you,  O  Fortunates,  possessors  of  many  and  tiled 
splendors,  can  never  know.  Because  there  was  n't 
any,  naturally,  when  we  took  the  house,  and  I  had 
visions  of  bathing  primevally  in  country  fashion  - 
with  a  small  jug  of  hot  water  for  finishing  touches. 
And  then  the  Powers  That  Be  decided  that  a  large, 
unenclosed  landing,  at  the  head  of  the  stairs  which 
lead  from  the  dining-room,  could  be  turned  into  one, 

and  O and  I  rejoiced,  having  been  accustomed 

to  the  effete  life  of  cities.  If  you  could  remember, 
as  I  do,  that  squalid  square,  with  three  untidy 
students'  beds — yes,  the  adjective  fits  both  nouns  — 
just  jammed  in  anyhow,  you  'd  understand  what  a 
triumph  a  neat,  tidy,  compact  bathroom  was.  True, 
the  walls  slant  a  little,  and  part  of  the  space  is  taken 
up  by  the  sturdy  central  chimney;  but  who  cares? 
I  don't;  there  are  blue-checked  gingham  curtains  at 
the  window,  my  favorite  bath-salts  come  in  a  blue- 
trimmed  bottle,  and  my  chosen  soap  looks  —  and 
smells  —  like  a  great  wet  violet.  Moreover,  for 
antiquities,  I  have  another  slat-back  chair,  white 
with  a  " cart-blue"  seat,  a  small  gilt-framed  mirror 


My  blue  and  gray  and  white  bath-mat  knitted  after  an  old  method 


THE  UPPER  HALL  AND  BATHROOM  203 

with  an  upper  painted  panel  of  a  valiant  ship 
a-sailing  on  a  cerulean  sea,  and,  for  a  bath-mat,  a 
knitted  rug,  done  in  the  old  manner  in  gray  and 
white  and  vivid  blue. 

My  small  ship  is  symbolic,  and,  when  it  comes  in, 
and  I  either  make  or  inherit  millions,  I  shall  build 
myself  a  stately  mansion  with,  not  just  a  single  bath 
for  each  room,  but  two,  one  for  summer  and  one  for 
winter :  cool  greens  and  lucid  blues  and  pools  that  make 
you  think  of  water  lilies;  warm,  glowing  yellows 
and  russets,  and  fireplaces  with  leaping  tawny 
flames.  How  *s  that  for  Spanish  real  estate? 

Don't  think  I  do  not  love  my  queer  "cart-blue" 
bathroom.  I  do;  and  I  am  amazingly  fond  of  the 
odd  little  windowed  closets,  which  stretch  almost  the 
length  of  my  small  cottage,  two  at  front,  two  at 
the  back;  closets  in  which  youth  delights,  but  where 
maturity  bangs  its  head.  Actually  they  do  very  well 
for  storing  trunks  and  old  magazines,  for  holding 
the  children's  clothes,  and  providing  an  upstairs 
broom-closet;  while  one,  gilded  by  fancy,  is  the  Lit- 
tlest Daughter's  play-place,  known  to  her  friends 
as  "Cubby  House."  Of  course,  in  the  summer,  being 
just  under  the  eaves,  it  is  unbearably  hot;  and  then 
she  removes  herself  and  her  household  cares  to  the 
shelter  of  the  box  maples  in  the  backyard;  but,  if 
you  will  come  some  winter's  afternoon,  I  know  she 
will  be  entranced  to  pour  you  a  cup  of  cambric  tea, 
and  offer  you  the  hospitality  of  her  real  roof  tree! 


IX 
"THE   PRETTIEST  ROOM" 

You  see,  I  can  call  it  that  because  it 's  a  quotation 
-  what  the  Littlest  Daughter  said  when  she  first  saw 
it;  and  since  she,  with  her  big  sister,  is  joint  owner  of 
its  charms,  I  for  one  shall  not  dispute  her  title.  And 
of  course  I  feel  flattered,  for,  in  planning  this  room, 
two  problems  immediately  presented  themselves. 
First,  the  exposure  was  northeast,  and  warmth  of 
color  had  to  be  contrived ;  with  us  so  many  months  of 
the  year  are  downright  cold  and  bleak.  Yet  not  too 
much,  for  a  low-ceilinged  upper  chamber  in  one  of 
these  old  "story  V  half"  houses  can  be  unbelievably 
hot  when  loitering  summer  does  at  last  come  our 
way.  Warmth,  rosy  warmth,  I  must  have;  but 
equally  I  had  to  temper  it  with  hints  of  cool  blues, 
and  a  proper  background  was  the  first  consideration. 
Dense,  unimaginative  cartridge  paper  would  have 
defeated  my  purpose;  and  stripes,  even  in  the  right 
colors,  had  the  effect  of  a  little,  dumpy  woman  who 
dresses  for  length  and  then  stands  on  tiptoe  to  make 
herself  look  as  tall  as  possible.  Quite  by  happy 
chance,  as  well  as  experiment,  I  found  the  flowered 
paper  now  on  the  walls,  a  semi-conventional  pattern, 
more  pink  than  blue,  so  that  both  seasons  were 
suited.  And  its  old-fashioned,  sprigged  design  is  in 
harmony  with  the  idea  of  the  room  —  naive  and  child- 


My  valiant  ship  symbolic  of  high  good-fortune 


"THE   PRETTIEST  ROOM'  207 

like,  as  I  meant  it  to  be.  I  like  to  think  it  resembles 
the  wall-paper  that  Anatole  France  describes  in  his 
lovable  "Livre  de  Mon  Ami,"  when  his  mother, 
marking  a  single  flower  on  that  blossom-strewn  wall 
with  her  embroidery  needle,  said,  "  Je  te  donne  cette 


rose." 


My  second  difficulty  you  may  already  have  guessed 
-  certainly,  if  you  remember  my  earlier  confession 
that  five  of  us  —  and  a  pussycat!  —  must  be  fitted, 
somehow,  into  eight  rooms.  Why,  I  simply  can't 
have  a  family  skeleton;  I  have  n't  a  suitable  closet 
to  hide  him  in.  This  room  —  roughly  speaking  its 
dimensions  are  sixteen  feet  by  twelve  —  had  to  be 
adapted  to  the  needs  of  two  girls  of  quite  different 
ages,  one  of  the  first  conditions  of  all  being  that  they 
should  not  sleep  together.  Now,  those  of  you  who 
have  hunted  for  old  beds,  and  whose  search  has  been 
blessed,  can  bear  me  out  when  I  say  that  these  low- 
posters  very  seldom  come  in  pairs.  I  have  never 
seen  two  exactly  alike,  and,  even  if  I  had,  I  could 
not  have  got  both  beds  into  that  room  at  once.  So 
observe,  please,  my  compromise:  a  low-post  bedstead, 
and  a  couch,  comfortable  and  cushioned  by  day, 
which  magically  transforms  itself  into  a  cot,  pillowed 
and  comfortable,  by  night. 

But  will  you  begin,  just  as  you  always  do,  and  walk 
around  the  room  with  me?  I  can  show  you  so  much 
better.  Is  n't  the  ceiling  delightful  —  rounded  just 
like  an  ancient  field  bed,  or  the  top  of  one  of  those 


208     THE   NEXT-TO-NOTHING   HOUSE 

antedeluvian  horse  cars  that  we  used  to  ride  on  when 
we  were  children?  On  both  doors  are  H  and  L 
hinges,  those  magic  initials  which  stood,  so  they  say, 
for  Holy  Lord,  and,  by  pointing  to  a  cross  in  the  door, 
kept  witches  away.  We  are  not  superstitious,  — 

anyway  O is  n't, — but  we  are  fond  of  them,  and 

when,  recently,  a  pair  broke,  we  very  naturally  carried 
them  to  be  repaired  at  our  village  blacksmith's,  and 
laid  great  stress  upon  their  worth.  Now,  of  course, 
you  know  and  I  know  that  professors  are  not  sup- 
posed to  be  overpractical,  "book-learning"  in  our 
North  Country  being  a  direct  negation  of  that  qual- 
ity. "Professor,"  said  the  kindly  artisan,  "didn't 
you  know  that  you  could  get  a  good,  new  pair  of 
hinges  at  the  hardware  store  cheaper  'n  I  could  mend 
these  for  you?  "  (I  emphasize  this  story  to  show  the 
countryside  attitude  toward  old  things.) 

The  little  desk  I  picked  up  for  two  dollars  in  a 
Vermont  village.  Most  of  the  frame  is  soft  wood,  the 
drawer  alone  being  butternut;  but  I  kept  it,  not  only 
because  it  was  so  convenient  for  a  child  to  write  at, 
but  for  its  real  grace  of  line.  If  you  will  notice  the 
legs,  you  will  see  at  once  how  well  they  are  turned. 
I  have  frequently  seen  the  feet  of  reeded  Sheraton 
tables  with  just  the  same  pretty  shaping.  That  is 
why  I  am  inclined  to  class  it  as  a  fairly  early  Em- 
pire piece.  On  it  I  have  placed  only  the  necessary 
reading-lamp  and  an  old  Chinese  lacquer  jewel-box, 
which  repeats  again  the  brown-and-gold  notes  of  the 


'THE   PRETTIEST  ROOM"  209 

mahogany  furniture,  and  makes  an  admirable  recep- 
tacle for  a  small  girl's  paper  and  pencils.  The  chair 
in  front  of  the  desk  is  early  nineteenth  century,  too, 
and  is  stenciled  in  a  flowing  vine  pattern  in  gold, 
with  vivid  touches  of  green  and  black.  This  I 
bought  at  the  same  shop  for  a  dollar. 

Next  you  come  to  the  couch,  and  I  am  wondering 
if  you  will  at  once  recognize  the  coverlet  upon  it. 
It  is  the  three-colored,  three-dollar  one  which  I  bought 
at  that  little,  mist-hung  farmhouse  on  an  autumn 
hillside;  just  the  colors  to  suit  the  room :  cream,  coral- 
pink,  and  deep  indigo;  and  in  the  cushions  I  was 
fortunate  enough  to  match  the  shades  exactly.  My 
rugs,  woven  in  tones  of  blues  and  pinks,  are  modern, 
alas !  and  here  may  I  give  you  a  bit  of  my  own  experi- 
ence? While  you  frequently  find  old  drawn-in  rugs 
which  are  very  desirable,  and,  at  times,  braided  rugs 
which  are  very  pretty,  you  almost  never  discover 
delicately  colored  woven  rugs,  they,  apparently, 
having  long  since  gone  to  a  worthy  rest.  But  mine, 
modern  as  they  are,  are  attractive,  durable,  and  have 
the  added  advantage  of  costing  something  less  than 
five  dollars;  for  the  price,  to  be  exact,  was  precisely 
four  dollars  and  thirty-six  cents. 

But  all  my  economies  fade  into  nothingness  beside 
my  real,  triumphant  bargain  —  the  acanthus  carved 
bed.  It  is  one  of  the  two  loveliest  low-posters  I  have 
ever  seen,  with  its  graceful,  flaring  leaf-carving  and 
its  incised  acanthus  design  in  the  three  rounds.  For 


210     THE   NEXT-TO-NOTHING   HOUSE 

eight  dollars  it  became  mine,  and  I  shall  never  forget 
the  anxiety  with  which  I  gazed  at  the  one  post  dis- 
played in  a  corner  of  the  shop,  and  wondered  if  there 
were  three  others  to  go  with  it,  or  if  it  alone  had  been 
rescued  from  the  woodpile;  for  such,  in  the  past,  was 
the  custom  of  the  country.  Of  course,  getting  it  into 
condition  to  use  doubled  the  price;  but,  after  all, 
what  was  sixteen  dollars  for  such  excellence? 

The  old  man  who  sold  it  to  me  is  dead  now,  but  he 
lives  in  my  memory,  not  only  on  account  of  this  bed, 
but  because  of  many  other  bargains.  Because,  too, 
of  a  certain  whimsicality,  which  made  conversation 
with  him  a  beguiling  pastime  always.  I  remember 
once,  —  now,  to  get  the  full  flavor  of  this,  you  must 
remember  that  it  was  a  small,  small  village  he  lived 
in;  one  sleepy,  wide  main  street  with  shading  elms 
above  it, —  when  we  spoke  of  the  city,  and  the  magic 
name  of  Wanamaker  was  mentioned,  he  drawled: 
"Well,  I  can't  say  as  I  am  pussonally  acquainted 
with  Mr.  Wanamaker,  but,  of  course,  we  Ve  corre- 
sponded considerable." 

Are  n't  my  pillow  shams  attractive  and  becoming 
in  their  effect?  A  contemporary  suggestion  would 
ruin  the  bed,  you  know;  but  this  pair  I  copied  from 
some  I  saw  way  back  in  the  country,  and  I  am  so 
devoted  to  them  myself  that  I  am  happy  in  passing 
the  pattern  along  to  you.  But,  oh,  my  dears,  do 
look  at  my  counterpane!  It  is  an  heirloom,  woven 
in  East  Tennessee  surely  a  hundred  years  ago;  woven 


The  pine  desk  and  the  colored  coverlet 


"THE   PRETTIEST   ROOM"  213 

and  embroidered  by  my  great-grandmother's  slaves, 
diligent  and  beloved  handmaids  that  they  were. 
The  pattern  is  even  older;  it  has  that  central  vase 
design  that  you  see  so  much  on  old  glass  and  sam- 
plers and  faience,  and  in  its  myriad  stitcheries  it 
resembles  a  seventeenth-century  fabric.  The  vine- 
sprays  meander  pleasantly,  and  there  are  large  leaves 
of  that  variety  which  William  Morris  described  as 
"inhabited,"  and  little  leaves  and  tendrils  and  grape- 
clusters  and  flowers.  Lovely,  original,  and  so  easy 
to  do!  I  know,  for  I  tried;  and  all  you  really  need 
is  some  good  linen,  not  too  closely  woven, —  I  'd 
take  an  old  sheet  if  I  had  one, —  a  moderate-sized 
embroidery  needle,  and  white  knitting-cotton,  num- 
ber eight  for  the  heavier,  outside  stitches,  twelve 
and  fourteen  for  the  more  delicate  effects.  As  to  the 
stitches  themselves,  their  name  is  legion:  outline, 
long  and  short,  chain  stitch,  feather  stitch,  satin 
stitch,  buttonhole,  and  cross;  simplicity  itself,  but 
such  effective  simplicity!  The  corners  were  not  cut, 
but  that  was  a  fault  easily  remedied,  and  now,  edged 
with  ball-fringe,  and  hanging  over  a  valance  of  striped 
"dimothy,"  it  is  precisely  the  modest  adornment  that 
my  old  bed  needed. 

Over  it  hangs  Rubens's  Madonna  of  the  Parroquet, 
in  brown  tones  that  match  the  mahogany;  a  protect- 
ing little  picture,  too,  and  you  can  fancy  so  readily  a 
small  child  every  night  kneeling  down  and  saying, 
"  Four  corners  to  my  bed,  four  angels  round  my  head." 
It 's  that  kind  of  low-poster,  you  see. 


214      THE   NEXT-TO-NOTHING   HOUSE 

But  the  flowered  background  is  not  one  to  encour- 
age many  pictures,  and  so  I  have  but  four,  and  two 
mirrors;  the  first,  that  small  Constitution  hanging 
over  the  rope-carved  worktable  beside  the  bed.  It 
is  not  the  loveliest  mirror  of  this  type  that  I  have 
ever  seen,  although  it  is  very  engaging;  but  it  as- 
suredly is  the  oddest.  It  is  twenty-three  inches 
long;  it  is  carved  with  a  rosette-like  ornament  both 
at  top  and  bottom,  and  all  its  little  curvings  and 
shapings  are  delicately  grooved.  There  is  not  a 
touch  of  gilt  about  it,  and,  somehow,  this  omission 
makes  it  all  the  more  pleasing  and  unusual;  I  'm  very- 
sure  that  all  of  you  would  have  been  willing  to  pay 
what  I  did  for  it  —  a  dollar  and  a  half.  Maybe  I 
was  the  first  person  in  the  shop  that  morning  and 
appealed  to  the  proprietor's  trade-superstition,  or 
perhaps  he  was  influenced  by  the  fact  that  the  mirror 
was  in  wretched  shape,  sans  finish,  scms  glass;  any- 
how, it 's  my  proving  exception  of  buying  furniture 
in  good  condition  and  so  saving  cabinetmaker's 
bills,  for  I  paid  five  times  the  purchase  price  to  have 
it  renovated. 

The  worktable  is  my  one  piece  of  Southern  mahog- 
any, the  first  family  piece  to  cross  Mason  and  Dixon's 
line,  and  I  am  sure  that  all  my  "kinfolks"  prayed  for 
its  soul  when  it  did.  We  call  it  the  "  Table  of  the 
Grandmothers,"  because  it  was  made  for  my 
daughters'  great-great-grandmother  in  1802.  The 
little  bead-bag  that  lies  upon  it,  and  echoes  the  colors 


'THE   PRETTIEST   ROOM"  217 

of  the  room  in  its  shading  of  pinks  and  blues,  was 
given  to  the  great-grandmother  when  she  was  a  tiny 
girl,  by  a  tribe  of  the  Cherokee  Indians  in  Tennessee; 
and  the  old  papier-mache  workbox,  inlaid  with  rose- 
ate mother-of-pearl,  was  a  Victorian  tribute  to  the 
grandmother.  Actually,  and  apart  from  all  senti- 
ment, this  table  is  the  most  unique  piece  of  old  furni- 
ture I  possess;  rarer  even,  I  think,  than  my  Hepple- 
white  tip-table;  the  kind  of  treasure,  you  know,  that 
every  connoisseur  stops  to  look  at,  and  pay  the  tribute 
of  interested  inquiry.  It  is  made  of  San  Domingo 
mahogany,  with  sides  of  old  black  cherry;  and  the 
little  lower  shelf  is  formed  in  a  very  unusual  curve. 
It  is  the  only  table  of  precisely  this  design  that  I  have 
ever  seen. 

The  rocking-chair  I  bought  in  Vermont  for  a  dollar 
and  a  quarter,  too;  a  low,  very  comfortable  rocking- 
chair  of  the  early  nineteenth  century;  and,  indeed, 
being  something  of  a  Jingo,  I  am  immensely  proud 
of  the  defiant  gold  eagle  stenciled  with  such  bold, 
broad,  sheltering  wings  upon  the  top-rail. 

The  bookshelves  had  to  be  built  in;  a  room  of  this 
sort  in  a  house  of  this  kind  would  never  have  had 
such  things,  you  know;  but,  as  we  decided  before, 
rooms  must  be  alive,  must  n't  they?  Notice,  please, 
the  small  brass  bedroom  candlesticks  sitting  there  in 
each  corner.  How  many,  many,  little  sleepy  children 
they  must  have  lighted  to  bed ! 

The  curtains  at  my  windows  are  a  good  quality 


218     THE  NEXT-TO-NOTHING  HOUSE 

cotton  crepe;  a  happy,  vigorous  shade,  the  color  of 
the  geraniums  on  the  window  sill,  and  of  the  old 
hundred-leaf  roses  on  the  lawn:  roses  as  old  as  the 
house  itself;  roses  that  look,  when  they  first  bloom 
in  early  summer,  like  folded  bands  of  pink  satin. 
But  just  because  my  curtains  are  happy  and  vigorous, 
they  must  not  hang  in  direct  contrast  to  the  very 
green  blinds;  and  so,  between  them,  there  is  the  cool- 
ness of  sheer,  creamy  voile,  finished  with  bobbing 
ball-fringe  to  match  the  bed.  Still,  I  like  to  think 
that  my  pinky  curtains  go  together  in  friendliness 
with  the  roses  outside.  Once,  in  some  book,  I  read: 
"And  there  was  nowhere  in  the  room  an  indication  of 
any  sort  of  recognition  of  the  loveliness  of  the  view 
from  the  window."  I  hope  it  is  n't  so  with  me,  and 
especially  in  "  the  prettiest  room,"  the  only  place 
where  the  windows  command  a  view.  The  other 
glimpses  are  friendly:  white  barns  and  houses,  my 
neighbor's  white  Wyandottes,  and  a  village  street 
that  curves  under  arching  elms;  but  from  here 
we  look  upon  high  Romance  —  a  wondering  hill, 
with  a  sky  line  of  trees  that  curvet  and  prance  along 
in  the  guise  of  a  circus  procession.  Night  after 
night  we  have  watched  them  limned  against  the 
saffron  background:  first  the  coach,  then  the  camels 
and  elephants,  and  last  the  cages  of  r-r-r oaring  lions. 
Ah,  my  poor,  starved  country  children  have  seen  just 
one  circus  in  all  their  lives!  Do  you  suppose  they 
mind?  For  our  magic  trees  belong  to  us  alone;  as 


The  "table  of  the  grandmothers,"  the  stenciled  rocker,  and  my  most 
unusual  Constitution  mirror 


"THE   PRETTIEST   ROOM"  221 

pleasant  as  familiar  fairies  they  are,  and  the  only 
fee,  a  willingness  to  look  at  the  western  sky  before 
the  first  stars  come  out. 

But  I  digress.  Now  you  are  round  to  the  bureau; 
but  stop  a  minute  first,  please,  and  look  at  my  old 
Valentines,  characteristically  early  Victorian  and 
larmoyant.  The  one  at  the  left  depicts  a  gentleman 
in  black  smallclothes  and  Byronic  despair;  the  other, 
a  lachrymose  lady  in  rose  tendre.  From  London  they 
came,  and  the  verses  are  so  beguiling  that  I  am  quot- 
ing them  entire  to  you. 

THE   GENTLEMAN 

Amid  these  wilds  I  wander  in  despair; 
I  sigh  for  her,  so  faithless  yet  so  fair. 
Ye  streams,  ye  woods,  ye  breezes  tell 
The  agony  of  love  for  her  I  feel. 

THE    LADY 

In  this  recess  my  passion  here  let  sway; 
To  disappointment  my  heart  's  a  prey. 
I  cannot  long  these  pangs  endure, 
Despair  alone  will  yield  a  cure. 

Evidently  love  was  a  most  unhappy  thing  then! 

The  bureau  is  more  prosaic,  but  useful  and  suitable; 
of  a  good  plain  Empire  type,  the  wood  being  butter- 
nut and  mahogany  —  a  frequent  combination  with 
us  in  New  England.  I  bought  it  for  ten  dollars,  and 
the  brasses  —  which  are  reproductions  and  an  accu- 
rate copy  of  what  might  originally  have  been  on  it — 
were  three  dollars  more. 


222     THE   NEXT-TO-NOTHING   HOUSE 

It 's  the  mirror  above  that 's  perplexing  my  soul! 
If  I  count  it  at  what  the  dealer  charged  me,  eight 
dollars,  then  my  room,  for  everything, — furniture, 
refinishing,  curtains,  cushions,  rugs,  even  the  book- 
cases, —  would  come  to  eighty-nine  dollars  and  fifty- 
eight  cents.  And  yet,  you  know,  it  did  n't  cost  that 
much,  because  I  " swapped"  things  for  the  mirror— 
dreadful  modern  things  that  I  loathed  and  never 

intended  to  use  again;  for  we  have  a  way,  L and 

I,  of  going  through  the  streets  like  Aladdin's  magician 
crying  out,  "New  lamps  for  old,  new  lamps  for  old!" 

Why,  once  L traded  a  pair  of  andirons,  some 

tongs,  a  cot-bed  and  mattress,  and  a  wicker  chair  — 
all  twentieth  century,  of  course  —  for  a  lustre  pitcher; 
but  then,  the  pitcher  was  lovely,  and  the  other  things 
—  weren't!  However,  these  gilt  mirrors,  long,  and 
without  a  division,  are  rare,  and  I  was  very  glad  to 
get  mine  at  any  reasonable  price. 

Do  you  remember  the  wee  chair  beside  the  bureau? 
It  is  the  one  that  the  old,  old  lady  way  up  in  the  hills 
gave  the  Littlest  Daughter;  and  although  it  ante- 
dates the  rest  of  the  furniture,  perhaps,  by  more  than 
fifty  years,  I  like  to  keep  it  here  because  it  seems  to 
belong  to  the  setting. 

It  really  is  "the  prettiest  room."  I  wish  you  could 
have  seen  it  in  all  its  pinkness  the  other  evening,  when 
we  sat  and  told  fairy  tales  about  Rosy  and  Mousey, 
two  wonderful  little  bears,  the  marvel  of  whose  ad- 
ventures gilds  the  dullness  of  our  workaday  world. 


The  mahogany  and  butternut  bureau,  and  the  Littlest  Daughter's  Chair 


"THE   PRETTIEST  ROOM"  225 

Outside,  the  sky  was  streaked  with  rose,  too;  and  at 
my  feet,  in  the  wee  chair,  the  Littlest  Daughter 
listened,  her  cheeks  as  pink  as  the  curtains,  her  dress 
and  eyes  matching  the  room's  blues.  And  I  sat  and 
rocked  and  was  very  happy.  It  was  one  of  the 
experiences  which  make  you  rejoice  in  life. 

But  still  something  troubles  me,  and  I  want  you 
to  help  me  solve  this  problem  in  moral  values.  Since 
I  "swapped"  for  my  mirror,  what  did  my  room 
really  cost? 


THE   SOUTH   CHAMBER 

FIRST  of  all,  let  me  say  that  Daniel  Webster  was 
not  born  in  this  house;  that  his  father  did  not  build 
it;  nor  am  I,  to  my  great  regret,  in  any  way  related 
to  our  most  distinguished  American  statesman.  I 
frankly  tell  you  all  this  to  spare  you,  perhaps,  a 
certain  grief;  for  there  are  pilgrims  who  come  to  my 
little  cottage,  pause  at  its  threshold,  and,  when  they 
have  learned  all  these  disheartening  truths,  say, 
11  Thank  you,  but  I  think  we  won't  come  in."  Others 
there  are,  also,  who  view  my  old  furniture  and  remark, 
"So  Daniel  Webster  had  all  these  interesting  old 
things  when  he  was  here  in  college."  And  they  are 
disappointed  when  I  tell  them  that  he  was  poor,  so 
poor  in  those  early  days  that  the  farm  at  Salisbury 
had  to  be  mortgaged  to  send  him  to  Dartmouth; 
that  he  eked  out  his  scanty  resources  by  contributing 
to  a  little  local  journal,  earning  thereby  fifty  or  sixty 
dollars,  enough  to  pay  his  board  for  a  whole  year.  If 
your  interest  is  as  theirs,  you  must  not  read  further. 

No,  I  don't  believe  that  Webster  then  could  have 
owned  even  my  modest  treasures,  and  the  rent  of 
the  little  " south  chamber,"  which  I  am  going  to 
show  you,  where  tradition  says  he  spent  his  sopho- 
more year,  was  probably  not  more  than  a  dollar  a 
month.  Can  I  make  you  see  him  as  really  as  I  do  — 


THE   SOUTH   CHAMBER  227 

this  young  lad  in  his  middle  'teens,  full  of  ambition, 
"long,  slender,  pale  and  all  eyes";  this  wonderful 
youth  who  in  later  life  made  Carlyle  think  of  a 
cathedral?  Truly,  I  wish  he  had  been  here  in  his 
senior  year;  for,  in  reading  an  old  history,  I  have 
found  such  a  delightful  fragment  of  a  letter  written 
then  to  a  classmate;  so  delightful  that  I  want  him  to 
have  composed  it  in  this  little  room  before  this  little 
fireplace.  May  I  quote  it?  It  seems  to  be  about 
a  charming  visitor  from  Massachusetts,  whose  fasci- 
nations were  then  enthralling  Hanover.  "Salem! 
enchanting  name !  who  would  have  thought  that  from 
the  ashes  of  witches,  hung  a  century  ago,  should 
have  sprung  such  an  arch  coquette  as  should  delight 
in  sporting  with  the  simplicity  of  —  Daniel  Webster." 

Doesn't  it  make  him  "come  alive"?  You  see, 
with  us  here  at  Dartmouth,  his  memory  is  very- 
present  in  many  ways  besides  buildings  and  portraits ; 
I  wish  I  could  show  you,  behind  my  house,  the  lovely 
Vale,  which  bears  his  name  because,  they  say,  he 
used  to  pace  up  and  down  there,  studying  his  lessons. 

The  little  "south  chamber"  that  you  are  look- 
ing at  is  very  small,  so  small  that  I  don't  think 
Daniel  Webster  could  have  had  a  roommate  while 
he  lived  here;  smaller  even  than  "the  prettiest  room," 
which  is  just  across  the  hall;  and  I  had  to  plan  and 
contrive  to  get  in  all  the  necessary  pieces  of  furniture. 
Most  of  it  is  Empire,  a  few  years  later  than  the  type 
Webster  must  have  used ;  but  how  could  I  put  a  self- 


228      THE   NEXT-TO-NOTHING   HOUSE 

respecting,  twentieth-century,  gro wing-up  boy  in  a 
canopy  bed?  The  paper,  however,  is  a  reproduction 
of  an  English  pattern,  which  might  have  been  on  the 
walls  in  this  eventful  year  of  1799:  a  light  paper, 
with  interlacings  of  grays  and  lavender-ish  blues, 
because  the  room  is  directly  south  and  always  sunny. 
The  ceiling  is  low  and  rounded;  there  are  three  doors, 
one  opening  suddenly  upon  a  steep,  unexpected 
stairway,  —  you  know,  I  can't  for  the  life  of  me  see 
why  my  little  house  should  have  five  whole  pairs  of 
stairs !  —  and  the  room  would  be  an  oblong  if,  at  one 
end,  the  walls  did  not  abruptly  angle  in  a  little  fire- 
place. That  is  the  first  thing  you  see  as  you  enter. 
The  andirons  came  from  a  Vermont  hamlet,  —  village 
is  too  big  a  name  for  so  small  a  place,  —  one  of  those 
tiny,  tiny  places  tucked  away  in  the  shouldering  hills; 
and  I  paid  a  dollar  and  a  half  for  the  pair.  They  are 
just  hand-wrought  iron,  made,  maybe,  at  some  home- 
stead forge;  but  they  suit  the  narrow,  shallow,  black 
hearth  as  no  elaborate  pair  of  brass  andirons  ever 
could. 

Above  the  simple  mantel-shelf  hangs  an  engraving 
of  Daniel  Webster  in  middle  life  —  not  one  of  the 
rare  ones,  of  course,  but  a  good,  characteristic  picture, 
which  I  was  able  to  garner  at  an  auction,  frame  and 
all,  for  a  dollar  and  twenty  cents.  The  small  ma- 
hogany mantel-clock  came  from  a  Pennsylvania- 
Dutch  settlement,  and  was  a  present  to  me,  so  I 
can't  count  that.  The  little  pewter  candlesticks  at 


The  old,  turned  leg  light-stand,  the  portrait  of  Daniel  Webster,  and  my 
protecting  witch  ball 


THE   SOUTH   CHAMBER  231 

each  corner  are  really  whale-oil  lamps  with  the  wick- 
tops  unscrewed;  and  for  one  I  paid  a  dollar,  for  the 
other,  a  dollar  and  a  half,  and  they  were  bought  at 
the  shop  of  the  old  man  who  had  "corresponded 
considerable  "  with  Mr.  Wanamaker.  How  I  miss 
that  dusty,  beguiling  abode  of  bargains! 

And  look,  just  at  the  left!  Can  you  see  that 
dangling  glass  ball,  and  do  you  know  what  it  is? 
It 's  an  old  "  Witch  Ball,"  and  it  was  bestowed  upon 
me  by  a  kind  admirer,  anxious,  I  suppose,  to  pro- 
tect me  from  all  malign  powers.  In  ancient  days 
their  use  was  this:  they  were  filled  with  water,  and 
then  hung  from  the  rafters  of  the  house,  more  potent 
even  than  a  horseshoe;  for  as  long  as  there  was  a 
drop  of  water  in  the  ball,  no  sorceress  could  enter, 
to  do  you  ill.  I  'm  dreadfully  proud  of  mine,  for 
they  are  rarity  itself.  And,  naturally,  I  hung  it  up 
at  once,  even  though  we  have  the  H  and  L  hinges  in 
this  room,  too.  I  was  n't  going  to  take  any  chances; 
so  it  dangles  from  an  antiquated  brown  riband, 
attached  to  a  still  older  hand- wrought  nail. 

The  little  table  standing  at  one  side  of  the  hearth 
—  for  my  son  thinks  that  it  is  such  a  pleasant  thing 
to  read  and  study  beside  a  friendly  fire  —  is  plain 
Empire,  with  well-turned  legs  and  a  pretty  brass  pull 
on  the  drawer.  It  is  made  of  cherry,  and,  I  think, 
cost  me  three  dollars.  Above  it  hangs  the  early- 
nineteenth-century  picture  of  a  ministerial  great- 
grandfather, and  its  note  of  gold  is  repeated  in  the 


232     THE   NEXT-TO-NOTHING   HOUSE 

modern  reading-lamp  and  in  the  little  gilt  photo- 
graph frame.  The  stenciled  chair  just  beyond  came 
from  that  old  vine-hung  house  in  the  hills,  and  I  paid 
fifty  cents  for  it.  It  does  n't  sound  true,  I  know, 
but  the  dear  old  lady  insisted  it  was  n't  worth  more 
than  a  quarter,  and  I  had  hard  work  to  make  her 
take  half  a  dollar!  I  had  to  have  it  re-rushed,  — 
you  seldom  find  these  chairs  with  the  old  seats  in 
good  enough  condition  to  use,  —  and  that  added 
two  dollars  more  to  my  bill  of  expense. 

Next  we  come  to  the  bed;  to  one  of  my  difficulties, 
too,  for  my  son  had  given  me  strict  orders  as  to  the 
masculine  effect  of  the  room.  Well,  of  course,  a  bed 
of  this  kind  simply  had  to  have  a  valance, —  they 
always  did, —  but  it  took  my  most  masterly  argument 
and  persuasion,  as  well  as  the  promise  of  a  pair  of 
military  hairbrushes,  to  do  away  with  the  chagrin 
of  what  he  calls  '' frills."  The  counterpane  is  made 
of  seersucker,  in  creams  with  two  shades  of  blue,  an 
ecru  stripe,  and  a  tiny  thread  of  red,  the  colors  which 
are  repeated  in  the  window  curtains;  for  I  long  ago 
discovered  that  a  white  coverlet  and  a  small  boy  are 
a  contradiction  in  terms.  The  material  cost  twenty- 
five  cents  a  yard,  and  it  took  twelve  and  a  half  yards 
to  make  it.  As  to  the  bed,  it  is  a  good,  plain  maple 
low-poster,  with  a  very  engaging  headboard.  Beauti- 
fully finished  in  the  full  cherry  tone,  it  came  from 
the  shop  of  the  man  L—  -  and  I  call  our  Favorite 
Dealer.  I  am  rather  proud  of  the  way  I  concealed  my 


The  stenciled  chair  from  the  old  vine-hung  house,  and  the  H-  and  I, 

hinged  door 


THE   SOUTH   CHAMBER  235 

pillows.  Ruffled  shams  were  denied  me  by  my  stern 
son;  white  would  be  the  wrong  note  against  the  coun- 
terpane; so  I  bought  —  what  do  you  think?  Two 
and  a  half  yards  of  blue-bordered  crash  dish-toweling. 
A  little  cross-stitch  red  line  runs  just  above  the  blue, 
and  in  the  corners  I  worked  formal,  miniature  trees 
in  the  same  shades.  The  small  cherry  light-stand 
beside  the  bed  was  three  dollars  more.  On  it  are  an 
old  brass  candlestick  —  another  gift  —  and  a  much- 
adored  and  worn  copy  of  "  Treasure  Island  "  —  my 
son's  bedside  choice.  The  straight-hanging  curtains 
at  the  windows  were  made  of  cotton  crepe  costing 
fifteen  cents  a  yard, —  ten  yards  made  them, —  and 
the  colors  and  effect  are  charming. 

The  modest  black  Windsor  rocker  I  want  you 
especially  to  notice,  it  is  such  an  agreeable  chair, 
admirably  proportioned,  and  thoroughly  comfortable 
to  sit  and  read  in  —  the  reason  why  it  has  its  place 
near  the  window  and  beside  the  bookshelves.  It  is 
joined  with  wooden  pegs,  and  you  will  realize  my 
luck  when  I  tell  you  that  two  dollars  was  its  price. 
It  is  earlier  in  type  than  the  rest  of  the  furniture,  but, 
somehow,  it  fits  in  with  the  feeling  of  the  room  as  if 
it  were  a  sister  piece. 

The  bureau  is  one  I  got  for  eleven  dollars  and  a 
half  at  an  autumn  auction  that  I  went  to  with  L—  — ; 
quite  a  wonderful  auction,  for  she  bought  a  large 
mahogany  mirror-frame  for  twenty-five  cents  and 
an  etched  globe  for  an  astral  lamp  for  a  nickel,  while 


236      THE   NEXT-TO-NOTHING   HOUSE 

I  secured  my  warming  pan  and  the  loveliest  old 
brass  latch  you  ever  saw  for  a  dollar  and  a  quarter. 
I  think  we  started  at  daybreak;  on  such  quests  we 
are  like  Chaucer's  heroine,  "up  rose  the  sun  and  up 
rose  Emilie,"  and  we  were  equally  matinal.  It  was 
an  old,  old  house  by  our  North  Country  way  of 
reckoning,  and  I  talked  to  a  kinsman  of  the  people 
who  were  moving  away,  tired  of  farming.  He 
lamented  their  lack  of  interest  in  the  homestead,  and 
the  decay  of  the  family  fortunes,  and  told  me  that 
his  great-great-uncle,  a  country  cabinetmaker,  had 
built  my  bureau  himself.  It  is  made  of  birch,  with 
the  drawer-fronts  of  beautiful  bird's-eye  maple,  and 
time  has  darkened  and  enriched  the  color  of  the 
woods  so  much  that  it  goes  becomingly  with  the 
mahogany  mirror  hanging  above  it.  The  mirror 
represents  one  of  my  "trades,"  but  I  know  that  its 
value  —  the  glass  was  in  it  —  was  two  dollars,  and 
having  it  put  into  condition  was  two  dollars  more. 
I  am  getting  almost  superstitious  about  this  figure, 
for  the  old  "Star  "  rug  at  the  side  of  the  bed  was  also 
two  dollars;  but  I  am  breaking  the  spell,  because  the 
leather,  brass-bound,  nail-headed  trunk,  which  you 
can  just  barely  catch  a  glimpse  of,  and  which  affords 
such  an  excellent  place  for  magazines  and  oddments, 
I  bought  at  another  auction  for  ten  cents.  (And 
here's  a  collecting  "tip,"  by  the  way.  Oftentimes 
it 's  worth  while  buying  these  antiquated  trunks,  just 
for  the  gamble  of  what  may  be  inside.  R—  -  paid 


13 

s 

bib 


The  small  black  Windsor  rocker,  excellently  proportioned  and 
agreeable  to  sit  in 


THE  SOUTH   CHAMBER  241 

fifteen  cents  for  one  once,  and  was  rewarded  by  find- 
ing, among  other  pleasing  things,  a  really  beautiful 
oblong  snuffbox,  richly  inlaid  with  mother-of-pearl.) 
But  let  me  go  back  to  my  "Star"  rug.  It  is  quite 
unique  in  design,  a  type  that  does  not  seem  to  be 
reproduced  nowadays.  An  old  up-country  woman 
told  me  how  it  was  made,  a  secret  I  pass  on  to  you. 
The  border  is  formed  of  two  rows  of  dark  braid,  but 
the  stars  are  worked  on  eight-inch  squares  of  woolen 
cloth  which  are  afterwards  cross-stitched  together 
with  bright  crewels.  Gay  colored  yarns,  too,  are 
used  in  making  the  six-pointed  stars,  and  these  are 
worked  across  a  pattern  cut  out  of  tin, —  a  stiff  card- 
board would  be  quite  as  good,  I  am  sure, —  the 
stitches  being  taken  over  and  over,  and  then  slit 
down  the  middle,  so  that  the  tin-form  can  be  removed. 
Last  of  all,  the  yarn  is  clipped  close,  so  that  it  re- 
sembles in  effect  a  drawn-in  rug  which  has  been 
carefully  sheared.  It  really  is  very  pretty,  very 
simple,  and,  oh,  so  very  softly  toned!  I  do  wish 
Time  did  lovely  things  like  that  to  human  beings! 

The  round  rug  in  front  of  the  fireplace  is  old  and 
quite  delightful,  too:  a  combination  of  knitted 
centre  and  crocheted  border,  the  design  a  black  and 
ecru  cart-wheel.  We  found  it  on  one  of  our  "rug- 
ging" expeditions,  at  such  an  interesting  house,  little 
and  low,  and  set  just  at  the  edge  of  a  brown  trout- 
stream.  I  remember  thinking  how  enchanting  it 
would  be  to  stand  on  the  shady  back-porch,  and 


242      THE   NEXT-TO-NOTHING   HOUSE 

catch  a  few  trout  for  breakfast  every  morning.  The 
house  was  as  neat  as  wax  inside,  and  the  floor  was 
covered  with  the  fruits  of  the  housewife's  industry, 
lovely  rugs  that  she  would  n't  "part  with."  Mine  I 
found,  doubled  up  and  thrown  in  a  corner  under  a 
bench  on  the  piazza;  if  I  craved  those  old  things,  I 
could  have  them  for  seventy-five  cents  apiece,  though 
what  in  creation  I  wanted  with  them,  she  did  n't 
know.  When  I  asked  her  how  she  ever  managed  to 
accomplish  so  much,  she  told  me  of  the  white  and 
drifted  winters,  —  ah,  don't  I  know  them !  —  not  a 
neighbor  near,  and  the  hours  that  would  be  so  lonely 
if  it  were  not  for  her  work.  The  beauty  she  created 
was  her  consolation. 

My  braided  rug  is  new,  one  of  the  most  attractive 
examples  of  modern  work  that  I  have  ever  seen, 
and  done  with  commendable  fineness.  I  furnished 
the  rags,  of  course,  and  the  work  cost  six  dollars. 
In  it  are  blended  our  sartorial  hopes  and  fears  for 
years  past.  Do  you  realize  what  a  family  record  a 
braided  rug  may  become?  I  think  you  would,  if  you 
could  have  beheld  the  Littlest  Daughter  the  other 
day,  lying  flat  on  the  floor,  and  chanting  a  litany 
that  ran  something  like  this:  "And  here's  Mama's 
green  velvet,  and  my  blue  dress,  and  Sister's  blue 
dress  with  the  white  dots,  and  the  used-to-be  hall 
curtains,  and  Daddy's  gray  trousers!"  Just  try 
saving  your  old  rags  and  see  what  an  account  of  the 
everydayness  of  existence  they  will  sum  up  for  you. 


The  curly-birch  bureau  with  bird's-eye  maple  drawers,  a  combination 
now  much  sought  after 


THE   SOUTH   CHAMBER  245 

My  pictures  are  not  many;  besides  the  two  I  men- 
tioned, is  a  pair  of  valentines  just  as  engaging  as, 
although  more  robust  than,  the  two  in  "the  prettiest 
room."  They  sing  the  loves  of  an  Early  Victorian 
soldier  and  sailor,  in  verses  that  breathe  a  noble 
sentiment,  but  that  do  not  always  rhyme.  But 
what  matters  a  mixed  metaphor  or  so,  or  give  and 
revive  being  supposed  to  chime,  when  intention  is  so 
worthy?  Church  and  State  go  together  in  these 
tender  missives;  the  soldier  points  reassuringly  to  a 
church,  —  his  is  no  light  flirtation!  —  and  the  sailor 
waves  a  Union  Jack  as  sheltering  to  Love's  messenger 
as  ever  it  was  to  little  Rose  Maybud  in  "Ruddygore." 
What  on  earth  did  those  carping  critics  of  the 
" Gentleman's  Magazine"  find  to  object  to  in  such 
guileless  tokens?  Seriously,  I  am  very  fond  of  them, 
and  always  a  great  believer  in  the  value  of  these  old, 
charming,  inexpensive  prints  for  maintaining  the 
proper  wall-feeling  of  a  room  of  this  sort.  Over  the 
trunk  hangs  another  black-framed  picture,  a  little 
French  print,  Le  Chien  Savant  —  which  gives 
interest  to  that  rather  blank  space. 

All  told,  this  little  south  chamber  cost  slightly  less 
than  sixty-three  dollars.  Do  you  like  it?  I  hope 
so,  and  yet,  when  you  come  to  see  me,  it  may  look 
different;  for  now  I  am  showing  it  to  you  unadorned 
by  my  son.  Then  it  may  be  the  banner-hung, 
trophy-filled  room  of  the  small  boy  who  lives  in  a 
college  town.  You  see,  our  cottage  is  fairly  ringed 


246     THE   NEXT-TO-NOTHING   HOUSE 

round  with  fraternity  houses,  and  they  all  have  ash- 
piles;  and  when  a  student  throws  a  thing  away,  it  is 
ready  for  its  last  long  home,  goodness  knows!  I 
don't  think  that  any  of  you  can  imagine  how  quaintly 
antique  the  Venus  of  Milo  looks  until  you  see  her 
without  her  head.  Besides,  my  son  is  suffering  at 
present  with  what  Mr.  Tarkington  calls  "Bingism." 
Only  the  other  day  I  surprised  a  frowning  arsenal  of 
wooden  revolvers  nailed  up  against  the  wall.  Oh, 
well,  a  boy's  will  is  the  wind's  will,  and  sometimes  it 
does  blow  into  a  hurricane!  I  am  endeavoring  to 
lose  my  interior  decorating  instinct,  and  trying  to  be 
just  a  good  mother.  Why  should  I  resent  his 
mechanical  constructions  spread  broadcast  over  the 
floor?  They  are  the  little,  tangible  symbols  of  his 
dreams  and  ambitions,  and  I  confide  to  you  a  secret: 
I  am  hoping  that  the  mantle  of  greatness  of  our 
Elijah  is  going  to  fall  upon  his  shoulders. 


The  ten-cent  leather  trunk,  and  the  small  colored  print 


EPILOGUE 

AT  first,  when  I  began  to  write  these  words, 
I  looked  round  my  parlour  to  see  just  which  of  my 
old  and  cherished  pieces  best  could  speak  my  words 
of  farewell,  the  epilogue  of  "The  Next-to-No thing 
House."  Should  it  be  the  Hepplewhite  tip-table,  a 
slim,  pretty  lady,  ready  to  drop  a  curtsy,  and  make 
a  gracious  speech,  or  my  capacious  bannister-back 
armchair,  which  must  have  held  in  its  time  so  many 
judicial,  portly  figures?  And  then,  suddenly,  I 
decided  that,  since  I  had  dramatized  my  own  do- 
mesticity, it  was  I  who  was  the  chief  protagonist; 
and  so  it  is  Myself  that  is  speaking  to  you. 

Now,  if  you  have  done  what  I  never  under  any 
circumstances  do,  read  the  "Prologue"  first  of  all, 
you  know  my  philosophy  of  collecting.  May  I  share 
with  you,  also,  my  philosophy  of  housekeeping,  which 
is,  indeed,  for  most  women  just  another  phrasing  of 
the  dailiness  of  life?  It  implies  much  care,  much 
work,  but,  after  all,  there  is  n't  much  wrong  with 
work  itself.  It 's  "worry  that 's  the  rust  on  the 
blade."  If  I  had  my  way  with  this  world,  I'd  make 
everybody,  men  and  women  alike,  work  usefully 
with  their  hands  some  part  of  the  day. 

That  was  really  the  trouble  with  the  Garden  of 
Eden ;  in  this  purposeless  existence  there  was  nothing 
for  Adam  and  Eve  to  do ;  everything  was  miraculously 
accomplished  for  them.  But  if  Adam  had  had  to  dig 


250  EPILOGUE 

around  the  roots  of  that  Tree  of  Knowledge,  loosen 
the  dark,  sweet-smelling  earth  of  springtime;  mulch 
it  and  prune  it  and  pick  the  apples  and  pile  them  in 
great,  golden  mounds,  he  would  n't  have  had  time 
for  discontent.  And  if  Eve  had  had  to  pare  those 
apples  and  make  them  into  luscious  pies,  or  stir  a 
bubbling  cauldron  of  lucent  amber  sirups,  she  never 
would  have  harkened  to  that  very  subtle  serpent. 
Rather  she  would  have  said,  "Adam,  if  you  don't 
drive  away  that  pestiferous  snake,  I  simply  can't 
make  my  jelly  jell!  " 

No,  the  thing  that  is  wrong  with  housework  is 
monotony,  the  endless  monotony  of  uncreative 
routine;  washing  the  same  cup  and  hanging  it  on 
the  same  hook  on  the  same  shelf  three  times  a  day 
without  any  hope  of  change.  But  so  are  created 
order  and  system,  you  argue.  (Others  besides  Alice 
in  Wonderland  enjoy  contriving  imaginary  conver- 
sations.) And  I  reply  that  these  two  virtues  are 
excellent  but  not  sufficing.  I  am  trying  to  be  fair- 
minded.  I  frankly  own  that  there  are  times  when  I 
adore  a  wild  spree  of  intense  domesticity;  but,  to  be 
equally  honest,  this  impulse  generally  occurs  when 
I  have  n't  been  doing  a  lot  of  it.  And  there  are  other 
women  who,  like  Hilda  Lessways,  hate  it  and  so  do 
it  "passionately  and  thoroughly."  And  I  want 
women  to  like  it;  it 's  got  to  be  done,  and,  properly 
interpreted  and  rewarded,  it 's  a  fine,  big,  intelligent 
piece  of  work.  Besides,  dear  knows,  no  man  can 


EPILOGUE  251 

ever  do  it!  It  was  the  way  of  a  man  with  a  house 
that  first  made  me  an  ardent  suffragist. 

Nor  do  I  believe  that  it  is  solitude  which  shatters 
the  domestic  nerves.  I  greatly  admire  Dr.  Myerson; 
for  the  most  part  I  live  his  willing  protestant  to  be, 
but  I  do  not  always  agree  with  him.  I  cannot  admit 
that  solitude,  conducive  to  daydreaming,  is  in  itself 
a  bad  thing.  I  like  to  work  swiftly  and  alone,  think- 
ing, all  the  time  that  my  hands  are  busy,  pleasant 
things  about  my  house;  thinking  pleasant  thoughts, 
and  writing  them  down.  And  even  if  my  sisters 
under  their  skins  have  not  precisely  this  pleasure, 
I  still  want  them  to  have  something,  some  blessed 
material  good,  to  long  for  and  look  forward  to  —  and 
get!  If  a  woman  must  have  solitary  confinement  in 
her  housework,  at  least  fill  her  home  with  agreeable 
things,  the  things  that  are  tangible  desires.  You 
remember,  don't  you,  Maud  Muller's  daydreaming, 

The  weary  wheel  to  a  spinet  turned, 
The  tallow  candle  an  astral  burned. 

Well,  I  want  those  monotonous  cups  to  change, 
somehow,  to  pretty  pink-lustre  tea-sets,  the  shelves 
to  a  corner-cupboard,  shell- topped,  lovely. 

Moreover,  my  creative  routine  implies  a  really 
much  bigger  thing,  the  economic  independence  of 
women:  for  which  I  have  Scriptural  justification. 
Turn  to  your  "Proverbs,"  and  read  about  the  woman 
whose  price  was  "far  above  rubies,"  whose  valiant 


EPILOGUE 

soul  resembled  a  merchant-ship.  "She  seeketh  wool, 
and  flax,  and  worketh  willingly  with  her  hands.  .  . . 
She  maketh  fine  linen,  and  selleth  it;  and  delivereth 
girdles  unto  the  merchant.  .  .  .  She  considereth  a 
field,  and  buyeth  it."  Her  routine  was  creative;  her 
household  was  well  worth  careful  guidance.  Figur- 
atively speaking,  I  behold  you  diligent  with  spindle 
and  loom;  but  what  I  also  want  is  to  see  you  con- 
sidering a  field,  and  buying  it  if  you  want  to! 

So,  my  dear  Friends  in  Collecting,  I  am  wishing 
you  this  greatest  of  good  things.  I  wish  you,  also, 
high,  incomparable  adventures  along  the  broad  road 
that  stretches,  and  everything  you  desire  —  almost. 
Not  quite!  Leave  something  forever  to  anticipation; 
keep,  I  pray  you,  always  one  fair  Aladdin's  window, 
for  nothing  you  can  ever  buy  will  be  so  lovely  as  that. 


THE  LIBRARY 
UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA 

Santa  Barbara 


THIS  BOOK  IS  DUE  ON  THE  LAST  DATE 
STAMPED  BELOW. 


Series  9482 


UC  SOUTHERN  REGIONAL  LIBRARY  FACILITY 


A     000  976  903     5 


